Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: seminolewind on April 05, 2013, 11:41:48 pm
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Ok, so the last time I made a bow was about 12 years ago. I am now at a point in my life where things are slowing down enough to where I can build bows and do the things I enjoy again. I do 6 month rotations with my job going to Afghanistan and back when I am home its go time !
I met Eddie "mullet" on this forum who lives near me and he gave me an OLD Osage stave he had in his shop. I think he said it was cut in 94 ! and its 68" t2t Its not the prettiest thing but I dont have anything seasoned yet so here we go !
Ya'll are welcome to watch me on this thread lets hope it ends in a sucessful bow !
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Thats not a snake its the stave !
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I have some straightening in front of me !
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I'd like to see her done...
:)
-gus
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I had to build a jig since I want to make this a sinew backed recurve, also had to make a block jig to get this thing straight. This is the first jig I ever built so in hindsight I would have made the holes a lot smaller so I could get my C clamps closer together. I ended up fighting the bend a lot because of this and actually had to drill more smaller holes later on.
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Heres the front of it. My plan was to bend the tips from the front back.
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I read that steaming was a great way to bend sage so heres the setup. Its just a pot covered with tin foil to hold the steam in.
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While she was steaming I tried to knock one out, went for one last serration and SNAP...
back to the bow :'(
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Lookin good brotha! that suck about that arrowhead, cant wait to see that bow finished :)
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Ok so here's what I learned about steaming old Osage... DONT DO IT ! after the first time on the pot it bent well, but I noticed a couple longitudinal cracks forming on the belly. I have since learned that this is from the moisture being re-introduced into the wood and it drying out relatively fast. From here on out I switched to the heat gun which I found to worked nicely. With the heat gun I was able to direct the heat at very specific parts of the stave that I wanted to bend, That was very helpful with this particular bent up limb. One thing I did notice is that with heat the stave was a little harder to bend than the steam but I no longer had the checking issue...
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No joke I fought this limb for hours and had to come up with some pretty ingenious (ghetto) ways of gettin the darn thing straight. It required a lot of reheating and tweaking. I do have a question for everyone though. Is it possible to heat/steam a limb too much ?
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So it was time to flip the tips so I busted out the jig and quickly learned some stuff. I tried to bend from the front back but almost immediately saw grain start lifting so I stopped immediately. I then decided that I would make my bend starting from the back out to the tip tightening down the clamps slowly as I heated up the limb. I decided to put olive oil on the limb as well to help curb scorching...I hope this doesnt bite me in the ass when it comes time to glue on the sinew. Any suggestions to get rid of the oil so the hide glue adheres well let me know !!
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So here is the end result after fighting with this thing for a good while >:( ...tips alligned, propeller twist gone, and good sweeping curves with no lifted grain !
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Hard to believe this is the same limb pictured at the beginning !
Well, this is as far as I have gotten as of now, Its floor tillered and ready for the tip overlays. Since I am backing this with Black Racer snake skins I want to make the tip overlays out of either bison horn or a black cow horn (If anybody wants to work a trade for some horn I'm all ears !)
As always any advice or input is appreciated !
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Wow 19 year old stave ??? Its definetly dryed out looks good so far
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Good job on straightening it!
To get rid of the oil use some acetone. When it comes to sinewing it's a good idea to degrease the whole back anyway with osage. Again you can use acetone or just plain old hot soapy water. You will see an amazing amount of yellow come off! Keep going until the water runs pale yellow...I do mine in the shower :D
Your recurves look pretty long to me. Remember that the benefit of making a bows tips recurved is the improved string angle so my advice with them is always go as short and sharp a bend as possible. This allows you to really shave them down and keep the weight low.
Also when you sinew it string it backwards and pull it into more reflex before adding the sinew. Another tip with sinew is to make sure the back ends up as crowned as you can make it. Try trapping the back before sinewing and then just putting the sinew on the central section. These things are to try and really strain the sinew, it can easily stretch way further than the wood can bend so doing all these things really gets the most out of it.
Good luck
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That osage isn't old...its "ripe" ;) 8)
Not much else for me to say cus it looks like you learned a few lessons along the way
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Thanks "mikeswick" for the advice. I agree my curves are pretty long. Here's what I'm thinking about doing...I'm not sure if you can see by the pics but the handle portion of this stave is not very deep and the way the stave was laid out and cut by the original owner it has no indention on the sides either. This basically means no arrow shelf :( I am thinking about smoothing the rear part of the handle area down and making this into a 5 curve bow that bends (slightly) through the handle. This might help with my long reflexed tips and in my opinion makes a nice curvy look and will solve my handle issue while lending a plains Indian style to it...thoughts or advice?
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Eddie is a terrible teacher. Run!
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Looking goooooooooooood!!
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Looks like a fine piece Seminole. You got three of my favorite things in the background there, Harley, smoker BBQ and a nice wood workbench......
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"randman" you're right 3 of the essentials in life...well theres one more.. >:D Ok so here is todays work I bent the other tip and matched it up. I am really thinking about making this a 5 curve since its a long piece and I am a tall dude (6' 4") and I like my bows like I like my women CURVY ! Ill have to build a new jig for the deflex. I'll be back with more progress....
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Another view...
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Seminolewind, that one is coming right along!
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Eddie is a terrible teacher. Run!
Hey he taught me how to drink beer pretty well !
Heres another quick question...whats the best glue/epoxy for the tip overlays ???
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Loctite Super glue. And I'm back from SC and just cut some Bison horn today. You can't have it real easy with an old piece of wood like that, no fun there. ;)
I'm not supposed to drink beer, you coerced me to do it. ;D
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whats the best glue/epoxy for the tip overlays ???
Smooth on ea-40 epoxy is really good, but I have been using the gorilla impact superglue lately with great results. Some use the 5min epoxy from the big box stores, but I have had a couple let go on me with that stuff.
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Tite bond 2 works good for the tips it's easy to use and is cheap. How thick is your handle area ???? You could always glue on another piece of wood to build up the handle area so you could cut an arrow rest
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Loc tite superglue and you are back to sanding on those tips before the day is over. I have had better luck with titebond, but it takes longer to dry. Use the superglue! I am anxious to see it bending!!
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Loc tite superglue and you are back to sanding on those tips before the day is over. I have had better luck with titebond, but it takes longer to dry. Use the superglue! I am anxious to see it bending!!
Does it matter if it takes a little longer ????? Bow makings all about patience, and waiting a few more hours for a better glue joint sounds better to me if I plan on having the bow for a very long time
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Ok so heres where it stands as of now. I made a jig to introduce the deflex after bending it at the handle. I am now ready for the buffalo tip overlays (there in the mail) as my next step followed by sinew. It is floor tillered as it sits.
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Another view...
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Looks like you battled through to get to where you are now! Great job so far!!
With regard to gluing tip overlays - I use Araldite (2 piece resin and hardener). I put horn on bamboo a couple years back and it worked out well.
Looking forward to seeing more on this bow!
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Looking great! SS
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I figured since I am going to be tillering this thing soon I had better build a jig !
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Another view...
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I really like your five curve design. That should be quite lovely when it's done...
OneBow :)
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great idea for the tiller tree as well! wish i had the wall space for something like that.
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Has this bow been finished yet ??? I'm really liking it
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Has this bow been finished yet ??? I'm really liking it
+1. SS
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I'v been out of commission lately, I got my wisdom teeth pulled but I will be working on the boffalo horn tip overlays really soon followed by backing with sinew and black racers.
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That is going to be one amazing bow.
Grady
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Ok sorry about the delay for those who were following the build. Well I'm back at it and got the buffalo horn tip overlays completed. I had a couple horns that were well aged, I had to file down into them quite a bit to get rid of the cracking but in the end it worked out fine. I have never done any tip overlay work prior to this but with the wealth of information on this forum I was able to achieve great results.
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I cut the tip blank at an angle with a small hand saw...
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I started by sanding on my belt sander both the buffalo horn and the bow, followed by gluing the horn blank to the back of the bow at the tip. After a lot of research I decided to go with this CA gel superglue, I was very happy with it because it is in a gel form and does not run all over the place like a lot of thinner super glues. I also found it to make for nice joining surfaces and it appears to be holding very strong.
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I then clamped the blank in place relatively lightly so there was still some glue between the surfaces to make the bond
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I then cut the tip at an angle to start giving the overlay some shape while getting rid of excess horn and wood
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Here is the result...From here I just narrowed the tip and shaped it on the belt sander followed by a dremel for the finer sanding.
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here it is after more shaping...
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Here it is after cutting the groves with a chainsaw sharpening file...
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Another view...
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I like how the tip overlays look when they are sharper and pointed I think it ads to the sweeping recurves. Well thats it for now, next step sinew backing....stay tuned !!!
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This is going to be a hell of a bow !
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Nice build seminolewind. I can't wait to see it finished up. Waiting for that sinew to cure is going to be excruciating.
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Thanks guys yeah waiting for the sinew to cure is not gonna be fun. Now the question which hide glue to use. I could got the titebond route or some of the others such as the hide glue on 3 rivers website. Any suggestion are appreciated as I mentioned this is only my second bow ever and I have never sinew backed bow before.
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Knox Gelatin works just fine for sinew.
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This is your 2nd bow ?? Wow never would've guessed. Can't help ya on the glue I've never sinew backed
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I have to admit - at the point of cutting the excess horn & wood from the tip I couldn't see where you were going with the design. Then I scrolled down... WOW!! absolutely beautiful!!
Really enjoying this build-along!!
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Doing great!
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Looks like you've got the touch, Elijah. Gonna be fun to meet you tomorrow. I'll be watching this thread!
Stephen Parnell
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Exceptional seminolewind.With those tips and the curves the sinew will put on your limbs it'll have some very very lovely lines to it.
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Ok I'm back at it...sorry for the delay to those following this build. Well, I decided not to sinew back it since I dont have time before I go back to Trashcanistan, but its good Osage well seasoned and straight figures it doesnt need it anyway. It would have been fun but I'll save that for my next one when I get back. Got it on the long string and started working the kinks out. I am going really slow trying not to make the classic rookie mistake of ending up with low draw weight. Its going good so far, no creaks snaps or pops. I see the snake skins coming out real soon !
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Worked that stiff limb out a little. Still have a ways to go on it to get the kinks out...
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looking good!
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Just gorgeous profile on that
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Looks good should fling those arrows pretty good.
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Love to see old wood being purposed for something new. Can't wait to see the finished product