Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Prarie Bowyer on January 29, 2015, 11:36:48 am
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Anyone here do or know of an all bamboo recurve?
I'm going to try one... was thinking bendy handle shortie with a cooked belly.
I was youtubing hunting videos and saw a guy with a long bow of some sort that was a bamboo composite with a boo belly and riser built up over the bamboo belly.
I know james Parker has the Bamboo composites similar to what I understand as the "GI Bow" where basically bamboo replaces glass on the back and belly. This design was a bit different. Think Yumi with western riser added on.
Interesting concep.
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Dutchwarbow on tradgang made some awhile back
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John Strunk had one. It had a boo back, and the core was 4 or 5 boo lams glue together. If you looked at the cross section, the back would be a horizontal lam, and the bellies all vertical.
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I have done it twice. I went with a basic pyramid shape, about 2" wide, from bamboo planks 2.5" wide. Just added recurves. Even though the back and belly were both crowned, got the bamboo (it was just moso) as flat as possible (when you cook the belly lams they flatten some if you let them. Thin the bamboo, and remove inner nodes, and when you flame the outside it flattens slightly). Glued up they were just about 3/8" thick.
I pre-bent the tips by boiling (if you bend something crowned on one side weird things happen to the glue line, so bend, then flatten, then glue)). I put wedges between the bamboo in the recurves, and a powerlam-style handle build up (mulberry, I believe) between bamboo back and belly.
Both were 64" about, with kinda long but mild curvature recurves, and hunting weights, mid-40's. I tried to match the nodes up so that belly nodes were between back nodes (thinking this would make thickness more consistent), but ended up flattening the belly nodes during tiller, because I was having trouble seeing the curves. Both shot pretty well, took little set. The pyramid shape required only a little side tillering, but the tips kept getting narrower, so I let it be with a tad too much bend near the handles.
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Pictures - links?
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Sam Harper does some and has a build for one.
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http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=001858
all you needed to do was a quick search
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http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=001887
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/36045/Bamboo-Backed-Bamboo-long-flatbow-completed#.U9g1d_ldWlJ
http://poorfolkbows.com/brecurve3.htm
I have been wanting to do one. I made a test bow out of scraps, about 3 feet long. it came out way way too stiff.
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Pictures - links?
Sorry, I have ADHD and I can only get on this site between ER patients at work, so I suck at posting pics, or even taking them, for that matter. I need to repent. In all my years doing this I have posted MAYBE 15-20 images, all over on Stickbow.com.
The links above are basically what I did, shorter handle-core, more bend in middle limb, thicker at the tips.
I went with consistent thickness as I could, and no deflex. The other approach is to taper the belly and get it bending TOO much toward the tip, like a really whippy tiller, then glue a consistent thickness backing on. This way, the percentage thickness increase might DOUBLE close to the handle, but quadruple near the tips, if that makes sense. (You know the thickness/width rule, right?) That's how you prevent too much bend off the handle.
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I must be getting old and less tech savy. I don't find those other forums as user friendly and searchable as PA.
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And I'm the other way, I guess. Stickbow.com allowed you to upload pics right from your desktop "document" files. Now everybody wants you to upload to an image hosting website and create a domain, etc.... THAT is always a big bother to me.
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If you google what you are looking for it will come up easy, if you search the sites you have to muddle thru all kinds of crap you weren't looking for