Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => English Warbow => Topic started by: nineworlds9 on March 14, 2013, 07:32:31 pm
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Ok, so I haven't had the time to make a bow yet, busy as I am, but I have learned a lot from reading TBB vol. 1-3 already. Took on a small project for fun- installing some proper looking nocks on my Rudderbows 90/100@33 hickory tri-lam warbow. The bow originally came with very plain/boring double self-nocks for use with a stringer. I recently happened upon a very nice pair of ebony wood roughed out nocks for the low price of $6 and said WTH why not and it'll make the bow look right. Got the nocks in the mail and they were shaped halfway decent and had just a sharp cut straight 'generic' nock groove cut in them, obviously they needed fit and finish.
Ok...so original bow specs approx. 76" overall, 90/100#@33". I knew I'd probably have to cut off the tips of the bow because the tips would be too slender to fit inside the pre-drilled sockets in the new nocks. I was right so I dove in. Initially I cut off as little as possible, just cutting off the portion on each tip with the double self nock grooves.
This removed 1 3/16" from the top limb tip and 1 5/16" from the bottom limb tip...initially.
Fitting the new top nock went very well and no further wood was removed.
Fitting the new bottom nock went a little awry because the bottom limb is naturally a bit thicker than the top and the bottom nock socket was a large is it was gonna get and I ended up taking off an additional bit of wood getting my desired taper, making a new total of 2 1/16" removed from the bottom limb length...that's an additional 7/8" of wood over what was removed from the top.
3 1/4" total removed from the bow. New bow length without new nocks 72 3/4".
With new nocks fitted NTN length now 72" exactly.
Edit: grip is 5" of total length
Top limb from edge of grip to nock groove: 36"
Bottom limb from edge of grip to nock groove: 31"
I think I need to move the grip :)...that is unless the bow is spliced.
Got em epoxied on with 1 minute epoxy. Let cure overnight, then proceeded to fit string to nock grooves and adjust as necessary. Initially the sharp 'generic' grooves where at the wrong angle and too narrow, so with some file/carving work I got them just right and the string rides beautifully now.
Finished shaping the nocks to desired look and got everything clean and coated with 3 coats of hard satin lacquer. Beautiful! Let dry overnight and today proceeded to brace up again and do some shooting.
Wellllll...
Braced bow. Drew back a few times...YUP, I gained some draw weight! 5# at least. Maybe more. Shot a few arrows at a 10 yd target. Seemed to shoot same as before, but a bit faster I think.
Had wife take a pic of me at full draw (behind the ear). Hmm. Top limb bending more than bottom, to be expected..? Overall doesn't look too bad.
Well after shooting a few times I did notice something on the bottom limb that has me WORRIED. "Chrysals"??!!!! I was praying it wouldn't need re-tillering after doing the nock work, knowing I had removed 7/8" more length from the bottom vs. the top limb.
I'm just not sure if the marks I'm seeing are genuine chrysals or just 'finish' chrysals in the varnish that is on the bow. Study the pics and tell me what you think. I used paint shop to mark the end points. They appear superficial to me, very faint and I wiped some dust over a few in one of the pics to highlight them some more. Rats. I really hope I don't need re-tillering, the bow is so pretty now, but oh well... Opinions?
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo5-1.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo6-1.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo8-1.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/warbownewdraw.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/warbownewdraw-Copy.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo3-2.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo4-2.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo2-3.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo1-3.jpg)
(http://i1309.photobucket.com/albums/s631/nineworlds9/Warbow/photo-3.jpg)
ALSO MADE A VIDEO OF THE DRAW:
http://youtu.be/X6L8Z4OhwwM
****Edit: going to take new pics and new video now that I've wished up and moved the grip further up. Duh. Also, sandpaper revealed those 'chrysals' may have just been in the finish on the bow...once I got through the finish I couldn't see anything. Pulled the bow back to 33" a few times and they didnt appear to come back. Perhaps a warning?? We'll see. With the new 72" length I'm not gonna draw past 31".
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I know I also run the risk of increased set, but so far after two brace/unbrace shooting sessions it is the same as it was when the length was 3.25" longer. Hmm. This chrysaling thing has me worried!! Just hope its in the finish and not the wood.
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Pure madness :o !
Sorry to be so blunt, and I expect you've worked it out for yourself.
You should have made horn nocks to fit the slender tips rather than cutting down the tips to fit those grossly oversized ones.
What are those damn nocks made for? The top of fence posts????
I posted a nice 2 part 'how to do horn nocks' on my blog.
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/horn-nock-instructional-part-1.html (http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/horn-nock-instructional-part-1.html)
Generally you are better off trying to do a whole job yourself if possible. When in doubt... don't... or try it on a bit of scrap... or ask us on here first.
The bow looks too stiff in the outer thirds anyhow... but then chopping the tips off may well have messed up the tiller...I'd guess the bow is pretty much ruined.
My advice is start making some simple bows ASAP to get your skills and understanding on the way up the learning curve.
If you want sympathy, I'll ask mrs Cat for you.... Nah, no sypathy there either ::)
On a kinder note, don't beat yourself up, I've already broke one this year and we learn from our mistakes.
Del
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LOL. Del you're killin me. You make a good point. Thankfully I bought the bow used and paid a low price so not soo tragic. I currently lack the tools to drill my own nocks. Either way, impulsive and slightly misguided..perhaps :). The bows original tiller I think was suspect, perhaps I magnified the error.
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Def need to get more tools and start a bow. As for this one, ill shoot it until it blows up or I could try fixing the tiller. I know the nocks looked chunky, honestly I kinda like em. John Strunk said trial and error is the best teacher LOL. Def will ask more questions next time.
Edit: just braced and shot the bow again. You know it still shoots very well, cast is great and I nailed a bull at 20 yds drawing behind my ear. The 'chrysals' do go into the wood as I feared...a scrape with a pocket knife proved it. Oh well, perhaps I need to give the bow a messed up name and shoot it until it breaks. Bow hospital recommendations to avoid this?? Lol
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What kind of wood I the belly made from ?
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What kind of wood I the belly made from ?
Hickory. Bow is hickory/ipe/hickory.
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Did some measuring again, I may need to move the grip upward as long as its not a 'spliced' bow:
New length 72" NTN
Grip= 5" of total length
Top limb from edge of grip to nock groove= 36"
Bottom limb from edge of grip to nock groove= 31"
Edit: I'm an idiot! I should have measured and moved the grip in the first place!? I mean here I am drawing the bow pushing way below center. No wonder I'm having issues, nock hi jinks aside, LOL
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I also did some calculations...WTH was I doing pulling the 'new' bow @72" NTN to 33"!! I think my useable draw has fallen to 31" max. Combine me pulling the cut down bow to 33" and also like a bonehead leaving the grip in the original location when the top limb is 5" off, no wonder Im having fret/chrysal issues. I took the original chincy vinyl grip wrap off, found the original center mark, remeasured and found the new true center mark was at least 3/4" higher meaning I could move my grip up a full inch.
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Ok hmmmmmm it's a hickory ipe hickory bow I will tell you right now ipe would've made a much better wood for the belly you wouldn't have any chrysals hickory may be super strong under tension but it's not nearly as good in compression if I was to make that bow I would've used the ipe for the belly but
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Ok hmmmmmm it's a hickory ipe hickory bow I will tell you right now ipe would've made a much better wood for the belly you wouldn't have any chrysals hickory may be super strong under tension but it's not nearly as good in compression if I was to make that bow I would've used the ipe for the belly but
I agree. I didn't make the bow originally..it's Rudderbows warbow. I'm just busy modifying (mutilating?) it. No worries, it was used and cheap.
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Ohh yea I know you didn't make it I think rudder bows shoulda been alittle smarter on the wood choice either way good luck with the bow !
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Ok, so this is a 'shorter' bottom limb bow design for starters. Did some more reading in TBB. As I said, shortening the tips and having to take and additional 7/8" off the bottom limb moved the true center of the bow higher.
I just got done moving the grip and marking a new arrow pass 1" higher than the new true center. This leaves the bottom limb approx. 2" shorter than the top, which is in line with the original specs.
I also changed my stringing method from step through bottom limb down to step through bottom limb up...I think I was putting more of a bend in the bottom limb each time I braces the bow and didnt balance it by bending the upper limb before the draw, this is all discussed in TBB.
Anyway, I shot the bow again and it did very well...immediately after shooting a few times I noticed at brace height now having moved the grip and doing the new step through method that the bend in the limbs seems far more equal.
I went one further and after my last shooting session unbraced the bow and took some sandpaper to those alleged 'chrysal' spots...well it seems they may have just been in the bows original finish???
Once I got through the finish and started hitting the wood I wasn't able to see them anymore...unless they're too fine to see? But I can't feel anything with a needle point? Hmm. Maybe it was a lucky warning? I'm only drawing it to 31" from henceforth. I will take some new pics and video showing draw with the new grip location.
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LOL. Del you're killin me. You make a good point. Thankfully I bought the bow used and paid a low price so not soo tragic. I currently lack the tools to drill my own nocks. Either way, impulsive and slightly misguided..perhaps :). The bows original tiller I think was suspect, perhaps I magnified the error.
I have to kind of agree with that statement about the tiller...Every picture I see of a rudder war bow seems to be bending too much in the middle/handle area.
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LOL. Del you're killin me. You make a good point. Thankfully I bought the bow used and paid a low price so not soo tragic. I currently lack the tools to drill my own nocks. Either way, impulsive and slightly misguided..perhaps :). The bows original tiller I think was suspect, perhaps I magnified the error.
I have to kind of agree with that statement about the tiller...Every picture I see of a rudder war bow seems to be bending too much in the middle/handle area.
Agreed, I studied the first vid I made and indeed it's too stiff at the ends. At least at 33" draw. Gonna stop pulling it that far now that its only 72". 31" max from now on. New pics and vid soon.
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As you already know that bow is toast.
Firstly if you had to take any length off it should have been EXACTLY the same amount off both limbs.
The bow is bending way too much in the inner third. No wonder you've got chyrsals!!!
Hickory/ipe/hickory is about the worst possible combo of those woods. I don't know how this company gets any business.....
Ditch this bow and make/buy yourself a decent one!
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As you already know that bow is toast.
Firstly if you had to take any length off it should have been EXACTLY the same amount off both limbs.
The bow is bending way too much in the inner third. No wonder you've got chyrsals!!!
Hickory/ipe/hickory is about the worst possible combo of those woods. I don't know how this company gets any business.....
Ditch this bow and make/buy yourself a decent one!
Yeah, as you and Del said, I've kinda answered a lot of my own questions...
Yup thank gosh I didn't pay a new price for the dang thing. Live and learn.
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Well, you came to the right conclusion. Not much more to add.
On a side note, I don't think it's a smart idea to use wooden nocks like that. Have you ever seen them before? That's a good indication, because I haven't seen any succesful ones. One failure, but none came out good. There is a reason for that. Wood will split much more readily than horn. The forces the string applies to the nock, make the wood split. It just pulls the nock sideways, along the grain. The only reason you nocks survived thus far, is because you left them incredibly bulky. If you shaved them down a bit more like Del suggested, you will split the nocks in halves as soon as you brace the bow.
My suggestion for this bow would be to correct the tiller. At the moment it's agonizing to see. Correcting the tiller shouldn't take more than an hour and will greatly increase the longevity. It will still be a very mediocre bow at best, but at the moment it is just doomed to fail at one point. Also, do NOT sand those chrysals. Just remove the finish, but leave all the wood underneath. Correcting the tiller will alleviate some of the pressure from those chrysals.
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That may be the single worst tiller job I've seen on this site!!! I don't know who this Rudder guy is, but if he is offering these for sale he should know better. >:(
Robby
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Dark and Robby-
Don't worry I only sanded through the finish and kissed the wood. Good point about 'wood' nocks. Yes horn would have been better. At least it's ebony?! LoL. Yeah I'll say even before I modified (mutilated!) the bow it left something to be desired. But hey Im glad I bought it used (with a whopping 3 inches of set!) and paid a low price. Before the nocks and also after the bow has a lot of hand shock. I am going to take the advice and maybe use this one as a guinea pig/learning tool and play with tillering for the very first time. Maybe a little hospitaling will save this one?
Yeah Rudderbows has gone underground. They sell through 3Rivers now anonymously. Emailed with them once, very friendly people, can't say anything bad about them personally but can't speak for others. I can say however that my next warbow will not be 2nd hand but purchased new from Britain or better yet made by ME.
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Well, you came to the right conclusion. Not much more to add.
On a side note, I don't think it's a smart idea to use wooden nocks like that. Have you ever seen them before? That's a good indication, because I haven't seen any succesful ones. One failure, but none came out good. There is a reason for that. Wood will split much more readily than horn. The forces the string applies to the nock, make the wood split. It just pulls the nock sideways, along the grain. The only reason you nocks survived thus far, is because you left them incredibly bulky. If you shaved them down a bit more like Del suggested, you will split the nocks in halves as soon as you brace the bow.
My suggestion for this bow would be to correct the tiller. At the moment it's agonizing to see. Correcting the tiller shouldn't take more than an hour and will greatly increase the longevity. It will still be a very mediocre bow at best, but at the moment it is just doomed to fail at one point. Also, do NOT sand those chrysals. Just remove the finish, but leave all the wood underneath. Correcting the tiller will alleviate some of the pressure from those chrysals.
I dont agree with Wat you said about the nocks ebony wood is very very hard I very highly doubt you would split them
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Ebony is hard in terms of specific gravity. But ebony is still wood, and has a grain. The wood fibers are running in one direction. Despite the fact that ebony is hard, is can still easily be split along the fibers. Did you ever try to spit some firewood or even whole logs? It's remarkable how easy it is to split wood, as long as the split in the longitudinal direction and not across the grain. Just because ebony is hard, doesn't mean it can't be split. You should try splitting an ebony log, just to prove my fact.
Horn doesn't have such a clear grain running in one direction. It still has somewhat of a grain, but is much, much more 'interlocked' so to speak. Splitting horn is ten times more difficult than splitting wood (/ebony).
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Yep that is true I will not argue that but if you make the nocks with the grain running a specific way then it makes it alot harder to split I've never after years had a wood nock split on me it's usually dependent on which way the grain runs that determines how easy it will split
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If hickory is such a bad belly wood, why is it working for me anymore? I guess I might of got a really good piece or something,... ? With 100# or so, I have been getting only about an 1" of set. Now of course an inch is still not super duper great, (and of course the example of this bow in this thread obviously ain't great for hickorys rep) but it seems to work alot better than other woods I have used, and in my book, an inch is just fantastic for a 100# bow. I am curious, to all you other bowyers out there that have actual experience with each wood in longbow and warbow design, how would you rank each wood in compression: hickory, ash, white oak, curly maple, birdseye maple... I have heard (from alanesq's pdf) that ash will chrysal after 100# or so. And I have read on here over and over that hickory will and will not make a heavy warbow. What is the deal yall? :D
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Joe/Dark- for reference I checked the nocks...fella who initially made em in roughed out form did indeed carve em with grain going longitudinally, grain parallel to bow.
As for hickory belly, it may not be taking the strain if this botched nock job haha very well, but at least it hasn't broken yet. I keep measuring the set and it hasn't grown..it was 3" when I got the bow at 76" and still 3" now that its 72" and jacked up LoL
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never did like the rudderbows warbow anyway. i have seen some that bent so little in the outer halves of the limbs, i could almost swear they were lever tips. all the same, piking down the limbs probably didnt help, but if its any consolation, there was already a problem there anyway, so it isnt entirely your fault.
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Hickory, ash, maple, white oak... those are all tension strong backing woods. None of them make really good belly wood IMHO. Hickory/ipe/hickory is a horrible tri-lam combo for a warbow. Hickory backed ipe, however, is a whole 'nother story!
And no, I have NOTHING good to say about Jim Boswell and Rudderbows. The tiller on this bow is horrible for a warbow. Been stung badly in the past... don't get me started. I'll just leave it.
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Jim strikes again! Interesting that rudderbows seems on the down low. I think woodland archery is related in some way? They have one bow on the site, a plains Indian bow, that they actually recommend as a home defense weapon as a firearms alternative. And I think Justin Seinmetz (Jim's kid or stepkid) went amoke. Internet fraud, arrested maybe, ripping off customers left and right, all kinds of things. His Army service was even in question. Strange stuff. :)
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Is that going to be made into a movie at some point?
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Great reality TV! There's more bizarre stuff on right now!
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Just looked up Woodland Archery! what a sham.
so i have to say that my Fair/Rudderbows tri-lam "warbow" is just a turd. toomanyknots is supplying me with a beautiful bow that i'll be proud to fling arrows with.
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Jim strikes again! Interesting that rudderbows seems on the down low. I think woodland archery is related in some way? They have one bow on the site, a plains Indian bow, that they actually recommend as a home defense weapon as a firearms alternative. And I think Justin Seinmetz (Jim's kid or stepkid) went amoke. Internet fraud, arrested maybe, ripping off customers left and right, all kinds of things. His Army service was even in question. Strange stuff. :)
A short bow for home defense??!! That's insane. I'll just stick with this:
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Woodland Archery's site will either make you laugh or scream, depending on your temperment. :) That is not a bad thing to defend your life with there, and shotguns are a lot easier to learn to shoot well in a high-stress defensive situation than a handgun. 12 gauges must be just plain terrifying if you are at the wrong end of one.
But whatever you do, don't chose the Woodland Bows 48" plains Indian bow. They state it is very maneuverable from the back of a horse or the confines of a home hallway, can be left strung forever so it is ALWAYS READY TO SHOOT, and is accurate to 15 yards. Go read the text. It is awesome. But, if someone can convince me that they know what they are talking about, I may keep a little medieval handgonne / hand cannon next to my bed. I just have to make sure and light the slow match and load it before the bad guys can get to me. :) I can then beat the other burglers with it, or melt their eyes out if they don't mind holding still for the slow match.
Dane
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I think nuthin' cuts through the bullshit quicker than the racking of a 12 ga shotgun. You're right, I'd hate to be staring at the wrong end of that 3/4" hole too. One in the pipe and 6 more as back up don't hurt either. I got it loaded with #6 birdshot. Deadly enough at close range, and no over penetration issues.
This might seem severe to some, but it's perfectly legal (even here in Canada), and I refuse to be a victim.
Sorry! This is getting wayyyyy off topic.