Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Sidmand on February 16, 2015, 10:31:07 pm
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I have been wanting to pull off a bendy handle short(ish) bow for some time. I
personally really like the look and feel of that kind of bow, it really speaks
to me. I also recently read Jim Hamm's great "Bow's and Arrows of the Native
Americans", which describes many of he native american bows, and I like them
all. But, I really am draw towards the shorter, plains indian style bows. That
being said, I only have some Ipe and a strip of bamboo available to me, so I
wanted to get the best result I could with what I had on hand. I have lurked
about on Primitive Archer for a while, and drooled over many of the bows I have
seen here, but my personal favorites tend to be very short bendy bows, and many
of those were built by Rich. So, I PM'ed him and asked for help, which he
graciously extended! I'm quite excited about it. We spoke on the phone last
Friday for about a half hour or so, and based on that conversation, we came up
with the following layout:
After working that up, I explained that I only have a few hours a weekend to
work on my own projects but that I would get started ASAP. The following posts
outline our work in progress, and hopefully we come out with a great shooter.
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After having Rich look over my layout and getting some suggestions and an
overall "GO!", I picked my material and started marking it up. I had a
few sticks of Ipe at just about 5/8" thick. I also had a piece of
bamboo that was about 70" long and 2" wide. I grabbed those guys with
the idea of a 60" overall length bow, with 59" nock to nock, using the
Ipe as the belly and the boo as a backing. I did modify the
layout a little and made the tips thicker per Rich's suggestion, 5/8" vs. 3/8"
per the drawing, to leave a little wiggle room on the ends for now. We can always
make them thinner, can't make em thicker as easily. I marked the boo and the
Ipe up with a sharpie, marking centerline and lines 6" out from the center on each
side to show that I wanted to full width for that whole section, which
will be the handle/grip area.
Then I marked the width taper on each side from there to the tips.
On the Ipe I marked both sides. Initially I wasn't sure which one I'd end up using
for glue and which one for belly. I eventually made that determination by
looking at the Ipe, it had a little bit of natural reflex in it, so I figured
I'd take advantage of that and glue it up with the "u" side or bowl of the bend as the
glue. I marked that side as the "glue side", and the other as the belly.
I also blacked in the stuff to cut away. I also marked the nodes on the bamboo
with pencil, don't know why, just because I thought it might show up better in
pictures that way.
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I do all my wood removal with a drawknife, a Nicholson #49 rasp, a big
bastard file, and a Mystic Longbows stainless steel scraper. Once I figured out how to
sharpen the scraper, it is a great tool. You don't (well, I don't)
burnish it like a cabinet scraper, you just file it flat with a big ole
file at a good 90 degree angle, which creates a good burr.
I started out with the boo, using the drawknife to take the thickness
down to the point where it was about 1/8" thick in the center, and knife
edged on the sides. I stopped when I could see that I had removed all
the pithy stuff on the glue side of the boo, and had nothing but long
power fibers showing. Then, I took the scraper and cleaned it all up,
knocking down any humps and giving the boo a nice smooth backside for
gluing.
Next step I took was to start taking down the Ipe. I clamped it down on
it's edge on my "workspace", and started taking off material on the
limbs and the center. Having marked up both sides helped a lot this
time cause I could bevel the sharp edges with the draw knife, then
flatten out the middle. Went pretty fast, I had it roughed out in about
15 or 20 minutes. Then I took the scraper after it and smother
everything out again.
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With the Ipe roughed out, I layed it on the boo and traced out the
shape. I wanted to get some of the excess material off the boo, so I
clamped it carefully to the side of my work surface and then carefully
removed the edges of the boo with my drawknife. I cut off the ends as
well with my crappy Harbor Freight pullsaw, I didn't take pics of that.
Once all that's done, I checked it out by just putting the Ipe on the
boo. Looks to line up pretty good..
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I did the glueup differently this time based on directions from Rich. I
first started by scoring the Ipe. I couldn't find a hacksaw blade, but
I looked at my rasp and saw the edge of the tool had a lot of teeth on
it very similar to a hacksaw, so I improvised. I scored the Ipe with
long lines on the glue surface.
After that, I wiped the Ipe and the boo down really well with Acetone.
I know that Ipe is oily, so I wanted to make sure that was taken care
of. I hit the boo as well, cause I figured it wouldn't hurt. Once it
was dry, I buttered up both my glue surfaces with Titebond 3, using my fingers to spread
the glue in a thick coat on both pieces of wood. I gave it a few
minutes, then ran another quick bead of glue to make sure I had enough
and spread it out with my fingers again.
Now, I put the pieces together. I took some plastic wrap, and I wrapped
the whole bow from tip to tip as tight as I could. This was a figety
pain in the butt with one person, might have been easier with two. But,
I got it done and nothing slipped around, the two pieces were nice and
matched up and seemed to be held quite tightly together at this point.
Next step was to wrap the whole thing with a strip of bike innertube. I
left gaps in the wrap of about an inch or so. I used spring clamps to
hold the ends of the tubes at the tips of the bow, then used a long bar
clamp to pull the bow into perry reflex. The ends of the bow were
resting on my 2x4 "reflex blocks", each block is padded as well to keep
the bow both stable and to protect the wood..
I waited about a few hours, then went out and cut the plastic wrap
between the tube and ripped it up to allow air into the glue. I let it
dry like that for about 15 hours or so after that, nearly 24 hours
total. I pulled it off the "form" and unwrapped it all, and checked my
glue lines which looked good. No pictures of that yet, will post them
this weekend after I get all the glue boogers cleaned up. I have 3
inches of reflex in the bow at this point. Next steps are cleanup, then
thickness taper of the limbs and start floor tillering. That will come
this weekend.
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Good start. I like the looks of this project.
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Sidmand,
You have been a busy man for sure, looks like ya got her headed in the right direction, nice.
rich
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Wood u like some constructive criticism? There's several things to be addressed
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Wood u like some constructive criticism? There's several things to be addressed
sure, I don't mind constructive criticism.
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Like BLACK HAWK said but looks like a really good start.
60" BOW I DON'T CONCEDER A SHORT BOW
I like eastern indain bows. Which are 56,58"s to 62"s in some tribes. I make my personal gobbler bows. Where I shoot off my butt.
54,56"s. I conceder a 40 to 50 inch bow a short bow. I'm sure theres a few on here that build western plains bows.
That can explain it better than me.
Don't worry about the leanth if you think 60's short by all means make it 60"s. You've got a nice peice's of woods started you could make any leanth you want. Tilling short bows well there not for the inexspearanced OR FAINT AT HEARTI've broke 6 or 7 short bows. I use to build all types of bows just to do it. Short indain bows don't fit my ways of hunting.
I'm a buck anf gobbler hunter first I build bows and everything I need for hunting second. Bulding bows isn't my only hobby. I make knives. Manage the farms I hunt,and for 2 others.
Fly fish when I can,sang the eary fall, collect pray mantis egg caseings (nests) in the winter.
My familys third just the way it's worked out through the years. Do'nt worry they've never really suffered. MATTER FACT THEY'VE LIVED GOOD AS FAR AS I HAVE SEEN. But I've been away a time or 3 hunting everywhere I could. ONE YEAR I BUCK HUNTED 130 DAYS IN A ROW.
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Did you glue it up like that with the bamboo wider than the ipe? If so that will cause the boo to "cup" using the wrapping method...the glue lines might look good on the sides where all the pressure is,but in the middle it "could" possibly be a starved glue joint. If starved enough it'll eventually fail...may not happen right away,but the longevity of it lasting a long time is in jeapordy.
Continuing with the glue....don't score the surfaces deep using the titebond glues..and you don't have to and shouldn't score them at all...these type of glues are NOT gap filling property glues like two part epoxies. And when ya make gaps with these glues you are compromising the glue joint even more,and it won't be an "optimum" glue joint. I hope you didn't score deep gashes in it and kept it more just a roughed up surface. But that in conjunction with the possibility of cupping like I previously stated compromises the glue joint even more. Always follow the manufacturers instructions, and not what someone else says
Next...thickness taper your lams. See how all your reflex is in the handle? Unless you intended it that way(then fine if that's your prerogative), but you'll end up with something that is hard to put shape into at glue up. A thickness tapered lam will reflex evenly,and give you a nice graceful progressive reflex towards the tips shape. Setback handle bows like that have a less than desired force draw curve with straight limbs,and will want to stack earlier,and also it stresses the limbs more making it more prone to taking set and crushing the belly wood cells more if not designed for it,or not tillered well.
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Thanks blackhawk, I really do appreciate the feedback. I'm going to try to explain what I did better and then cross my fingers that I neither offend anyone or end up with a worse case scenario and a busted bow, so here goes.
I did the glueup with the boo wider than the Ipe, it's at most 1/8 inch wider, probably less in most cases. I hope that isn't to much of an issue since I don't have any more bamboo at the moment, but if it delaminates on me then I will have learned something. I did NOT score the surface of the Ipe deeply at all, more just roughed it up a tiny bit. Truth be told, I was thinking that I didn't score it enough, but I have used Titebond on a few other bows and several other projects and I knew it wasn't a gap filler, so I just kind of went with it with the light scoring because I knew the glue wouldn't expand and fill any deep gouges. I can see a benefit to having more glue surface though, which is why scoring it makes sense to me. But as you pointed out, maybe with the possible cupping and with the possibility of a less than adequate surface I might regret that. I hope not, but it certainly won't be the first bow I broke or screwed up. I did get even squeeze out on the innertube wrap, but not a lot of glue squeezed out, so I'm pretty confident I didn't starve the joints. Only time will tell at this point but I will keep an eye on the joints during tillering for sure.
It's already glued up at this point and I'm going to thickness taper the limbs this weekend. I will try to take a pic or two of the bow tonight to show you what it looks like off the form, but (to my less than trained eye), it looks like an even curve from tip to tip with around 3 inches of reflex taken. I had wondered whether to do the taper prior to the glueup but did not ask, and in hindsight I can see that it might have been better to do it prior to, but it's too late now. I did another bow that I am finishing up in the same manner as above and it's a good shooter, but I was a bit aggressive in my thickness taper and tillering. I tapered from the center of the bow to the tips (vs. leaving it full thickness for a few inches out of center) and ended up with a 30# bow vs. a 45# or 50# bow. It shoots quite well though, and my daughter likes it a lot, so she will get it and I will hope to get a good one out of this one.
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I did some measuring and checking last night and took some pictures of the bow now that its glued up. I wanted a way to check it that was a bit more scientific then what I started with, which was "put it on the table and measure the bend":
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/vwtgg8zh32gl9xk/first.jpg)
So, I grabbed some paper from a big roll I have and put it on a bench. I have several 1/8" thick pieces of redoak that I cut for slats (I thought they were white oak, I was wrong). I used one as a long strait edge, and then I butted the tips of the bow up to it and traced the strait line and the curve of the belly of the bow:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/24je6gsltxwqjpe/method_2.jpg?dl=0)
Then, I drew lines every six inches out from center to show where I wanted to measure the limb reflex from the centerline:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/dblog4akes8vba8/left_limb_3.jpg)
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/pcsyokjidi3yvib/right_limb_4.jpg?dl=0)
Using a ruler, I then measured the reflex and wrote down the results. I was actually surprised that I came out within 1/16 or so of matching across both limbs:
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/ydylruacvtssino/limb_a_5.jpg?dl=0)
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/nytwdmmj7hg0n4x/limb_b_6.jpg?dl=0)
(https://www.dropbox.com/s/o6k9xc43usahbnn/they_match_7.jpg?dl=0)
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Sidmand, Your progress looks good so far, You may want to tuck that advice away for future use and either glue up while everything is still the same width and then cut to shape, or try align backing and belly with a exact width match....but in no case have the thin backing wider than the belly. While cupping is a real issue I do not believe you will have a cupping problem on this bow because of the way you went about it.
The fact that you are using only the limited hand tools can make things a bit problematic, but like I said I believe your fine on the glue up.....time will tell sir.
I'm curious to know if you done any preliminary bending to get a sense of the available power? I think you are going to be pleasantly suprised.
rich
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Great read. Thanks for taking the considerable time/effort to document your build!
Question ... what's purpose of the plastic wrap?
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Sidmand, Your progress looks good so far, You may want to tuck that advice away for future use and either glue up while everything is still the same width and then cut to shape, or try align backing and belly with a exact width match....but in no case have the thin backing wider than the belly. While cupping is a real issue I do not believe you will have a cupping problem on this bow because of the way you went about it.
The fact that you are using only the limited hand tools can make things a bit problematic, but like I said I believe your fine on the glue up.....time will tell sir.
I'm curious to know if you done any preliminary bending to get a sense of the available power? I think you are going to be pleasantly suprised.
rich
yeah, the hand tools make things take a bit longer, but I don't mind the work, it's kind of relaxing to me. And, they are a ton cheaper than buying a bunch of power tools.
As to power, just in testing the limbs on the floor a bit, its stout to say the least ;). As in, it's hardly bending at all at the moment. Going to take a lot of thickness taper to get it working I think, but I suspect, based on the other one I did (that I over tillered), that it will start moving good when I do the initial taper per our plan.
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Great read. Thanks for taking the considerable time/effort to document your build!
Question ... what's purpose of the plastic wrap?
it helped on this build to keep everything together, once it was wrapped up it didn't move at all.
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I spoke to Rich on the phone to discuss tillering, which is the toughest part of this whole bow making thing for me. We discussed several ways of going about getting the bow to floor tiller and beyond, and he patiently explained to me the process of "faceted" tillering. I was actually doing some of the whole faceting process anyway because I only have hand tools, but once Rich explained the process to me it made a lot of sense, so I followed his directions. But first, I wanted to get a better way together for me to start measuring thickness on my limbs, so I created a thickness gauge using an Altoids tin. I cut out the metal with some scissors, bent it out to be 3/8 deep, and used that to mark my thickness taper lines on my wood.
(http://i.imgur.com/sEqr9MT.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Hb8QKWX.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/XgVa8LN.jpg)
I marked my 3/8 inch line starting at 5 inches out from center - which gave me full thickness for the middle 10 inches of the bow and then 3/8 inch for the remainder of it. I went with this thinking that with around 1/8 inch of boo, I'd end up with 1/2" limbs bending a bit for floor tiller, and I'd go from there to the long string and then to brace. I was shooting for mid 40 pounds at 27 inches.
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Then, I started in on faceting the limbs. I used my drawknife to carefully get as close to the center line of the limb and the 3/8 inch line on the limb side as I could.
(http://i.imgur.com/D68JoPd.jpg)
Then I took out my 40 grit "belt sander" (another Rich suggestion that worked real well), and flattened it all out good.
(http://i.imgur.com/NhF50VK.jpg)
Did the same to the other side of the limb.
(http://i.imgur.com/XubeZGU.jpg)
Then, took the drawknife out again, and knocked the ridge down in the middle/center of the limb, and sanded it down smooth, which gave me a little bit of a crown/oval shape in the belly.
(http://i.imgur.com/krfTNaz.jpg)
Then, I did the same to the other limb. This gave me a bit of bend in the limbs, which i worked a bit further to get about 3 or 4 inches of movement at the floor tiller stage.
(http://i.imgur.com/T5Xokz8.jpg)
after that, I cut some pin nocks in and had to quit for the day. Next installment will be final tiller.
(http://i.imgur.com/b5H7BoE.jpg)
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I missed my weight at 60", cause I got in a hurry and removed to much wood. This is a problem I have, totally unrelated to Rich's direction, especially since he offered to help every step of the way and I just didn't take the time to call like I should have. I just don't always have a lot of time, usually a couple hours during nap on the weekends is all I get. But, I digress, here she is, I piked the bow down to 54" total length to get some weight back, and stopped when I got it to what you see below, 42# at 27". After shooting it it still keeps about an inch of reflex, good times :)
(http://i.imgur.com/1hKbRYi.jpg)
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and here it is all finished up. Tips and handle are wrapped with jute saturated with Titebond 2. I built the handle up with cork cause I just haven't gotten used to the squareness and narrowness of no handle. The bow got two coats of minwax walnut stain, then 4 coats of Danish oil, then a nice thick coat of beeswax all over. String is B50, and the silencers are just brown yarn. It shoots GREAT, I like it a lot, and it will probably be my next hunting bow this year.
(http://i.imgur.com/luu4Uf4.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/uvoHJWh.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/7q7eDKn.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/xyQLHVL.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/DImugLC.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/JX42KZF.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/peF9Amk.jpg)
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And here is my full draw:
(http://i.imgur.com/VThOUmi.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/BcfXPkO.jpg)
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A lot of thanks goes out to Rich, he helped me a lot during this process and I learned a lot. Although there may be a mistake here or there, I can say with complete honesty that those mistakes were mine due to poor execution of Rich's explanations. Either way, I am very very pleased with the bow and Rich was a gentleman and a scholar, thanks again sir!
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Thats a whole lot of bend ya got going on there. From my experience it looks like it should have good power and speed. For your second bow that is very very nice. Hadn't heard from in so long I was gettin worried there bud 8) obviously unwarranted worry 8)
I like it and hope that you do to.
rich
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i like it... very nice...
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Thats a whole lot of bend ya got going on there. From my experience it looks like it should have good power and speed. For your second bow that is very very nice. Hadn't heard from in so long I was gettin worried there bud 8) obviously unwarranted worry 8)
I like it and hope that you do to.
rich
Not quite second bow, I have a few others, but for sure this is my second successful bow (in my definition of successful). The others I have built have all either broken or are dogs in regards to performance due to poor tillering due to me hurrying. And sorry about the contact last week, had kids puking all over the house and an uncommon (for Alabama) winter storm to contend with. All that being said, I really like this bow a lot, thanks again for your help Rich!
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Good looking bow. Nice work. I missed my target weight on my first few bows too. Took me a while to convince myself to just slow down, and enjoy the process.
Tattoo Dave