Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Blob on April 09, 2014, 12:20:48 pm
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So I introduced myself last week and thanked everyone for their help.
I have a Linen backed Red Oak ELB that I got off ebay cheap a few years ago. Never really cared for it, didn't shoot great and had tons of handshock. Decided that I was going to refurbish it. Removed the linen backing and sanded it smooth. Now just trying to decide how to glue it up, that is where I am looking for recommendations. I have a couple options: Maple backing, Hickory backing, or Maple core with Hickory backing. It is currently 72" long, ~2" wide, and tapers to ~1" at the tips. I have no problem making it shorter and am open to all suggestions.
My Goal is 45-50# @ 26"
Fire Away!!
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Well I'd say ur beat bet is to go to lowes or homedepot and buy a new red oak board and start from scratch. If the bow has been shot and stuff the belly is already damaged. Ur better off just making a red oak board bow from one of the build alongs.
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1" at the tips? and 72" long, i bet it does have some nasty hand shock. like blaflair2 said your better off making a new one.
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Yeah, if you back it with a wood backing, your gonna have to retiller it anyway to some degree at least I would think, essentially making a new bow in the first place. So you might as well start with a clean piece of wood anyway I would figure?
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I will be building an oak board bow in the near future. However, I already have this one that is just begging to have a facelift.
So my question again: Should I make it a tri-lam or just go with a single backing?
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Starting new will give you a better chance at the end result. But... I always enjoy taking old bows and mucking wiht them. IMO if a bow is laying in some corner it is not doing anyone any good. Bows are for shooting and learning. It will be a good learning experience. You could cut it down a good bit if you like, anywhere down to 62 inches at you DL. And thin the tips a great deal to 3/8'' perhpas. I'm no expert on backing so I'll leave that to the bowmasters on here if you want to go that route. I'm sure posting a pic will help them wiht the advice. good luck!
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it's 2" wide and an elb ???, got pics that is a huge grip
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Yep, its close to 2" wide with a D shaped belly. I'll post pics when I get home later.
I will be doing something with it, it needs to be a shootable bow again!
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please post pics, i would love to see this thing
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What was the draw weight initially? That'll give us an idea how much the weight needs to change now.
I would advice you to let this bow be, and start a new bow. It will likely be better than this current bow with an upgrade.
If you still want to improve this bow (since it isn't doing anything if it's laying in the corner), here's what I would do. I would pike it to about 68", refine the tips to ½" wide and remove the crowned belly if possible. Then re-tiller it to the desired draw weight. No need for an additional backing (IF the grain is good enough).
This bow should not be called an "ELB". A true English Longbow meet the ratio 5/8 for thickness/width at any point. This bow being 2" wide, cannot meet that rule and should hence be called a flatbow. Your bow might still be a longbow (just not an English longbow), if the string only touches the nocks and not the bow limbs.
If you insist on doing a glue-up, which everyone clearly advises against, than a maple backing of 1/8" would be best. No tri-lam.
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Ok, so it wasn't as wide as I thought it was. 1.5" wide in the center, 1" wide at the tips.
It was originally 50# @ 28"
I am going to be using it for something despite everyone saying its not worth it. I only have limited resources to work with and this is already in my possession, so it is going to be getting a makeover.
I am confident that it will not be any worse when I'm finished than it was before I started.
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Inch wide tips, sluggish, handshock enough to rattle fillings outa your teeth????
Funny, I don't remember ever selling you one of my bows. Sorry. :-[
I'm with the other folks, start from scratch...make YOUR OWN mistakes, don't waste your life fixing someone else's mistakes!
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Good luck dr Frankenstein.
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From the pictures, it looks like this bow has several inches of set, unless the stave/board was deflexed prior to making the bow. You don't know the history, and combined with the set in the pictures, you could consider it to be starting with damaged wood.
It is a bend in the handle bow, so you could probably pike it even shorter than the 68" recommended before the pictures which would increase the draw weight but more stress on the limbs. Cutting the tips down to 1/2" and re-tillering to a proper profile should reduce the hand shock. But if it is currently 50# @ 28 and you want 50# @ 26, this may not be achievable.
I would say if you want to do something with it, shorten to around 64", recut the limb profile to give you 1/2" at the tips, and re-tiller to give a proper tiller. It may be an experiment and blow up, but you said it was essentially useless as a bow before, so at the worst case, it breaks and you wasted your time. But you may end up with a decent shooter if the wood is okay. I think what everybody else is saying is that the amount of work you would need to do on unknown quality wood would be better spent on a fresh board. I say if you go into it with realistic expectations that it might break or might not result in your target of 50@26, then go for it and have fun.
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I think the other thing you may have learned is... you get what you pay for. You bought a cheap-ass bow off eBay and that's exactly what you got.
For the money you likely spent, you could buy enough material to make several better bows. There are lots of people on this forum that will help you through your first efforts.
Don't waste your time with that bow. It already has a lot of set. Backing it won't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
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There are lots of people on this forum that will help you through your first efforts.
Ya got that right! You got a lot of expertise at your fingertips and they are willing to walk you thru this. Some say it is called "passing it along", others are less poetic and a bit more brutally honest. We are "enabling" you into the addictive craft of bowmaking!
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After seeing the pic I'd strongly suggest on just starting over. An 1/8" maple backing with good grain would be good. U can make a nicer bow from a 5$ board at lowes. This site is oozing info, any questions ask.
If u wanna make that bow I feel it's like kicking a dead horse. Good luck and welcome
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I'm not going to tell you not to do the redo, my suggestions for a hard backing is maple and trap it use inner tunes and wrap it instead of clamps, and then place it back side down on a straight board and clamp the tips down so it is flat, just don't expect to make a silk purse from a sows ear, good luck, bub
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I think it's a waste of time too. The wood is already damaged. However I also see the value in using it as a learning tool just for the heck of it.
If I had to 'fix it' then getting the back flat, cutting to 68 inch, flattening the belly, possibly heat treating the belly (before gluing on the backing!!) and using either an ash or maple back somewhere around 3/16th would be the way to go.
It will never be a fast bow now but you could have some fun with it :)
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Heat treated it last night. The form has ~3" of reflex. Looks like it managed to keep ~1". I'll be gluing the backing on flat. I'll also be shortening it a few inches.
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how long did you leave it on the form after heating
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I'd leave the length.
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Left it for close to 2 hours.
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Next time leave it on the form longer, I wait till the next day
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Hi :)
This is the sort of thing I love!
Don't listen to all the 'bin it' comments >:(. see what you can really do with it.
If It was my project I would massively thin out the tips. From the look of the bend in the photos, there is little bend in the outer half of each limb.
Back it with a good piece of hickory and get tillering.
It doesn't matter if it is fast or slow, or what it looks like. Just get it shooting the best you can, and enjoy the whole process. O:)
We are all so obsessed with chasing the ultimate performance, that we forget what it is all about.....
The love ( and obsession ) of making bendy sticks ;)
Best of luck
Matt
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It doesn't matter if it is fast or slow, or what it looks like. Just get it shooting the best you can, and enjoy the whole process. O:)
Thanks Matt this was my goal all along.
Did the glueup on Friday night. Used 1/8" Maple and TBIII. No pics this time. The back side of the same form that I used for heat treating is perfectly flat. I clamped the tips and the center and wrapped it with twine. Left it on the form overnight then put it in my furnace closet till yesterday afternoon. Currently has approx 1/2-3/4" of reflex. Just bending it on the floor indicates the draw weight is up consideribly. Will be a couple days before the next update.
On a side note, this is what I did yesterday:
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So now that it is glued up.
Layout is currently 63" ttt, 1/2" at the tips, 1 1/2" in the center. Parallel for 10.5", tapers to 1 9/16" at 21", and then to 1/2" for the final 10.5" of each limb.
Good, Bad, Ugly?
The bottom line in the photo is the center line.
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Bad. Multiple run ups
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It's hard to tell for sure, but it looks like you didn't pick an ideal piece of wood for your backing strip. Looks like the grain has multiple run-offs throughout its length.
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Do you guys even realize how negative you are? This is what I have to work with. The backing strip was given to me from what was available at the time. You are taking away any bit of joy that I am trying to have in building and sharing a bow, even if it does turn out to be a failure. I do not have the resources that most of you have, I am doing all of the work on my kitchen counter!
I'm not expecting perfection from this bow, I just wanted it to be better than it was.
All I wanted to know in this latest update is if the layout was decent or if I should do it differently.
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We're not being negative. You asked a question, we answered. As a backing strip, it is a bad piece. If you don't want honesty don't ask for it. We can lie and say it looks great but we'd be giving you bad information and advice. You back a bow because the back is violated and won't survive. Backing it with another piece that's just as bad won't help.
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Make the middle 16" parallel and then a straight taper to half inch don't over complicate it
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Do you guys even realize how negative you are? This is what I have to work with. The backing strip was given to me from what was available at the time. You are taking away any bit of joy that I am trying to have in building and sharing a bow, even if it does turn out to be a failure. I do not have the resources that most of you have, I am doing all of the work on my kitchen counter!
I'm not expecting perfection from this bow, I just wanted it to be better than it was.
All I wanted to know in this latest update is if the layout was decent or if I should do it differently.
You asked. Should we lie to make you feel better? You say you want to make this better than it was. That might not be the path you're on. You've taken the time to work on this bow, why not spend the time making changes that will be productive and provide a favourable outcome?
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Blob, no one here is trying to kill your joy. I'm sure just about everyone would prefer to see you succeed rather than fail. Them telling you the backing is bad is to help you succeed. You need very straight grain, the sort of material you would find in quarter sawn lumber that came from a very straight growing very straight grained tree with no knots, not all wood is suitable for this job.
I would remove the backing and get a better one to put on it. TBIII will weaken with heat.
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While it may seem that a lot of the comments are negative these guys are really just trying to help you be successful in your build. Ive only used maple backing strips a few times and the ones I used were quartesawn so I cant tell you how many run-ups flatsawn maple can handle. If that were hickory it would probably be ok but still not an ideal piece. When a backing strip has that many run-ups it is an bad indicator that the board was sawn at an angle to the face of the tree or the rings are really thin. If the maple backing lifts a splinter the oak will probably blow up with it. I think thats what most of these guys are trying to tell you. :)
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I did so many "experiments" on my first bow, including heat treating, shortening the limbs, backing...it never did shoot great, but it did end up shooting! I probably wouldn't take that much time on one now, but for me it a was worthwhile learning experience.
However, I would not use that maple backing. Have you considered a fabric backing like silk or linen? You should be able to pick them up fairly easily.
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Hi Blob
I haven't worked with maple so don't know what its like. Keep it wide and the draw weight down.
I my early days I made ash bows with horrible ring violation and run off, most have survived to this day, but they are lower poundage. The tiller must be as good as you can get it. Make a tillering gizmo, it should help.
I know a very famous bowyer who recommends using a very watered down coat of glue on the back of non perfect timber to try to help it to stay together...not sure what the general opinion is about this though....
Best of luck, looking forward to seeing how it goes.
Matt