Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: aaron on May 17, 2013, 12:52:53 am
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Thanks to fiddler49 for the inspiration for this bow!
It started as a 4 to 5 inch diameter vine maple blank, about 62 inches, having an unusually clear back, and straight for its species.
By the time it dried, the string alignment was off by an unhealthy amount - it lay two inches outside the handle. Having had limited success with big bends using steam, I opted for a heat gun to correct it. I had aleady roughed it out to a bendy-but-narrowed handle design. When I bent it, the bend all happened at the narrowest point of the handle, and in the first couple minutes of cooling, it broke at the exact center.
Next, I recurved the ends, just for practice, boiled one hour.
Then, I cleaned up the broken ends and did some minor fitting of the two limbs at the handle. That is, I carved away the belly side of one limb to match the back side of the other.
And I used some 5min. epoxy to glue the two halves, paying attention to string alignment. This resulted in a blank with 2 or 3 inches of reflex.
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Should you have done a "Z" splice instead.................... ???
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the bow was now 55 inches, with a 5 inch overlap, and a 7 inch stiff handle. With the short but stiff recurves, this left 20 or 21 inches of working limb.
So, I decided to go for a kids bow, drawing 25 at 26. I didnt want perfect, just a knockaround bow for a beginner. I knew the epoxy wouldn't hold alone, it was more of a filler which let the sinew wrap hold it together.
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The z splice is nice, but this is quicker, and could be done without a saw.
I did some quick and dirty back nocks, using a sitka spruce wedge, hide glue and sinew.
And added some sinew to the handle to even out the job.
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Here are the unbraced, braced and money shots. that's a 26 inch draw.
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Sweet Aaron!!! You almost can't tell it has off set limbs in the full draw pic. What is the draw weight at 26"?
I knew a billet bow could be made with an over lap handle. You could have left out the epoxy and just pegged and wrapped the handle. Also you could add levers to a billet to keep the length. Technically it's not a take down
but still very cool!!! I would call it an Alaskan style offset limb, billet bow. cheers fiddler49
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Um, wow. Nice job....interesting.....different.
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that's cool, i like how you did that. 8)
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Nice job! More of an 'Alaskan Splice' but it still works allright and the tiller looks good. :)
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thanks, everyone.
draw weight is only 25 lbs- i kept it low because of the short length of working limb.
I could have made a real takedown by skipping the glue, but I didn't want to spend much time on it. The trick would be getting a nice tight fit between the halves.