Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: kid bow on June 29, 2014, 03:02:48 pm
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Made from oak this bow is 40# at 28" so it's a good one. I'm just looking I make her faster. What tips do you guy have for making these faster? Recurving it's got..... A fiberglass tape backing on it... I know bad but I had no other backing available. Anything helps.
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How long is the bow and what wood is it? The tips could be reflexed more. You can narrow the tips to reduce their physical weight. Tempering the belly will add a few pounds.
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Bow is 64 in nock to nock. How would I temper the belly of the bow ? And would reflecting make it faster
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First, move this thread to "Around the Campfire" as it is not a Primitive Bow since it has effing-glass on the back (Something I am not convinced would really do diddly to improve the speed of a wood bow)
Secondly, start narrowing the last 8 inches of the limbs a little at a time. Check your tiller CLOSELY as you go. When you just get a suspicion of a whiff of a hint of whip tillering, STOP NARROWING THE TIPS! So many bows have far too much mass out on the tips. Mass equates with inertia, inertia is hard to overcome both when it is not moving and again while it is still moving.
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Don't attempt to manipulate the profile with a backing already in place.
Make another.
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Ok calm down jw jeez man just calm down. My friend made this for me. He's a beginner and didn't think it would hold up. I want it to be faster so I can use it to hunt
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I agree that the FG tape probably isn't doing much for the speed or protecting the back. Brown grocery bag paper would be more effective and JW won't gripe about that. ;)
I use a heat gun to temper bow bellies. I like to cook it until it is a nice chocolate brown. You can use Mom's stove but you'll (first) get her permission and be careful not to over do it. It will smell up the house with burning wood smell. Once you've tempered the belly give it at least 3 or 4 days to rehydrate or it WILL blow!
reflexing the tips will add some speed also. What dos the back profile of your bow look like?
Like PatM said you won't b able to do any heat manipulation with the backing still on. Your best bet would be to build another and leave this one as your friend made it.
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It narrows near the tips to just under half an inch it's about an inch and a half wide at the grip
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How far back down the limb?
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4-5 inches
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Post a pic of the back profile or at least one limb. You might be able to reshape the profile with little affects on the tiller and reduce the physical weight also. Both of these can add speed to a bow.
What kind of arrows are you shooting? What do they weigh?
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In my honest opinion, you should start another one. Making a bow faster when it is already finished is too little too late.
If you insist on increasing this bow's performance, your options are very limited due to the glue that was used for the backing. Any attempt to steam, heat or boil the bow into shape will result in delamination. The only viable option is to kerf bend the tips into recurves. Recurving or reflexing will increase early draw weight, and over-all draw weight, and at least improve performance.
Shortening the bow (the only other option that does not require heat) is out of the question, since the bow is already short with 64".
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Get a string for it. Bet that gives you 15-20 fps.
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Key to speed number one is no set, after that there is a cacophony of other things to keep in mind and/or do to a bow. reflex/recurves is one of the easier to understand this increases early string tension and draw weight for a bow. The simplest thing is to make you tips as Thin as possible this reduces mass and air friction ( but generally friction won't really affect you than much) you can also temper bows as has been mentioned as well as low stretch strings. There are also designs like Molly's which use a lever for a mechanical advantage
Really as best I can sum it up to get your limbs to move as fast as possible you are trying to use as little mass and as little surface area as possible without causing damage (set) to the bow and where possible increasing the desire of the wood to return to it resting shape (tempering/reflex)
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I forgot who it was, but a winning bow of a RO board speed contest was a pyramid with about two inches of set. I'm pretty sure as long as set doesn't increase over time and isn't so severe as to rob a bow of its draw weight or structural integrity it's just considered undesirable for its association with a poorly designed bow.
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I think it was the RO board trade or build off Mark. I agree set isn't a deal breaker in speed or weight. I would go to lowes and by a 6$ piece of trim from lowes. With the straightest grain and least amount of run off. Then I would look up the 1000's of board bow build alongs. Find the best design for what u want. And make it. We'll help if ya got ??'s... But that bow.... I wouldn't fuss with it. Leave it how it is and show your friend what a real bow is. All wood, it'll smoke that glass. Glass tape isn't the same as bow tuff. Just my .02. But for 6 bux what ya got to lose O:) >:D
P.s. Listen to a lot of these fellers, they'll point ya the way, they always do
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Thank you all for the help and advice. I appreciate it deeply. I'll look into all the board bow build alongs an see what I need hope you all have an awesome evening.
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Kid, read George Tsoukalas' website. It will set you on the right path. ;)
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Thank you I'll be sure to give it a look.
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I forgot who it was, but a winning bow of a RO board speed contest was a pyramid with about two inches of set. I'm pretty sure as long as set doesn't increase over time and isn't so severe as to rob a bow of its draw weight or structural integrity it's just considered undesirable for its association with a poorly designed bow.
I'm not saying that a bow bow with set cannot be a very fast bow but I belive that to achieve the maximum a piece of wood will give it needs to have a very low amount of set. And theoretically to make the fastest possible bow it needs to have no set at all, this is what I've come to belive though listening to other bowyer's, however for practical purposes, and with no evidence to back it up, I suspect that anything under half an Inch of set May not even have a notable perhaps even measurable effect on performance and that anything under two inches is certainly acceptable
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I'm not saying that a bow bow with set cannot be a very fast bow but I belive that to achieve the maximum a piece of wood will give it needs to have a very low amount of set. And theoretically to make the fastest possible bow it needs to have no set at all, this is what I've come to belive though listening to other bowyer's, however for practical purposes, and with no evidence to back it up, I suspect that anything under half an Inch of set May not even have a notable perhaps even measurable effect on performance and that anything under two inches is certainly acceptable
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Yeah, at under two inches of set I'd suspect release/draw/etc.form errors would get in the way of accurately measuring drops in efficiency. Even training wheel bows vary shot to shot by a few fps.
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I'd bet a bow with 2" of set or even 4" of set can kill a deer if the archer uses the right arrow and does his job so is it the badly built bow or the archer? :-\
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Depends on who you ask ;)
Truth be told it doesn't take much to put a sharp head into and through a deer's vitals, but state laws and archers' confidence levels demand more than what's absolutely necessary, sometimes a whole heck of a lot more.
Then you've got guys like me trying to make faster and faster self bows 'cause we don't have the sense to stop and enjoy what we made last time :o O:) But it's more about the making than the shooting for me, personally.
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Set is a result of crushed wood cells on the belly. More set = low string tension at brace = less energy stored = slower arrow. :(
I've made various test bows from tension strong wood and pulled them until I had a lot of set. Then i've gone to the bandsaw and sawed those puppies in half (along the neutral plane)...the back half then pops straight and the belly goes into MORE set. So quite often that 2 inch or whatever is actually being held at a lower level of set by the back...and the belly is in a worse state than you might have thought.
So with regards to the above r/o bow the fiberglass has put the belly of an already tension strong/compression weak wood into more strain than it would have felt if it had been left unbacked (wether the grain was good enough to be left as a self back is another matter!).
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Thanks, Pat B. Jawge
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Depends on who you ask ;)
Truth be told it doesn't take much to put a sharp head into and through a deer's vitals, but state laws and archers' confidence levels demand more than what's absolutely necessary, sometimes a whole heck of a lot more.
Then you've got guys like me trying to make faster and faster self bows 'cause we don't have the sense to stop and enjoy what we made last time :o O:) But it's more about the making than the shooting for me, personally.
He's got the right Idea. State law requires that a handmade bow be above 40lbs for big game hunting. Even though this bow meets this standard I'm not gunna try hunting with it till I feel fully confident that it will kill te animal quickly and with honor. That's what my grandpa always taught me. Never hunt with something you aren't confident in using.
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Set, no set, or minimal set. Im glad your heady enough to realize what's adequate for your needs.
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Thank you pearl. Haha :D
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Ok so I narrowed the nocks dramatically and I can definitely see my arrows going faster. They just wiz right out of this bow and into my target in no time. Thanks for the "tips" lol hehehe :P