Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Horn Bows => Topic started by: mikekeswick on February 22, 2016, 01:21:12 pm
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(http://i492.photobucket.com/albums/rr283/mikekeswick/001_2.jpg) (http://s492.photobucket.com/user/mikekeswick/media/001_2.jpg.html)
(http://i492.photobucket.com/albums/rr283/mikekeswick/019_1.jpg) (http://s492.photobucket.com/user/mikekeswick/media/019_1.jpg.html)
Here are a couple of pictures of my latest Turkish hornbow. It's 48 ntn and 55#@28. It's been a long journey learning to make these bows and I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere!
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Looks awesome, would love some more pics!
Great to see you posting again :)
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Cheers Wizardgoat :)
It's shoots like a dream, I've just started covering in leather, this one will be getting painted and gilded also. It should take about two weeks and then i'll have some more pictures.
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Great, I gotta get my backside and have a go sometime...
Del
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Well done! Anyone making a horn bow deserves my full respect (for what that's worth ::) )
Some specs maybe?
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Cheers guys.
The core is a five piece with hornbeam riser, hornbeam limbs and ash tips. The horn strips were a funny shape, I had to add a small piece at the ens of the grip on one of the strips and they are only about 3mm thick. 105 grammes of red deer leg sinew. The sinew I've been getting has been too short in an ideal World...I wish we had elk and moose here and not farmed red deer....well you've got to work with what you've got!
Got most of the leather glued last night.
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Glad to see you back Mike.
Very nice bow
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Incredible! Well done. I'm with JoachimM, composite hornbow makers get mad respect in my book. I'm not very good with my hands so while I like reading about bowyering I'm a little intimidated to give it a try (living in a small apartment with no tools doesn't help either), but I can't imagine making that leap into composite bows...
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Well done Mike, I need to try my hand at a horn bow one of these days also
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What wood did you use for the laths/siyahs? Is it 3 piece? Is that a steel ring through them? Interesting.
Looks really beautiful. Looking forward to seeing your finish.
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High level of coolness Mike, can't wait to see her all dressed up for the big dance
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I think i am in love.
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Thanks guys. You are all too kind!
Leather is fully glued on now. I just dyed the kasan belly piece and the edge strips with ferric chloride and tannic acid. This is so that these pieces are black the whole way through and any scratches etc won't show up like they would if these pieces were just painted.
I tried my hand at gilding yesterday for the first time....quite tricky and a steady hand is a must!
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I gotta try ferric chloride and tannic acid, I guess. What I have used is iron acetate and tannins from tea.
This is really cool, I wanna make a Turkish horn bow one day. They're screamers
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Very nice Mike.Love watching your work here.Beautiful shape on your bow.I've got one here ready to tiller and one ready for sinew and would like to know or at least see the process of getting the shape you want from the backwards curl you start with.There are those clamp on form things[I forget the name of them] used in karpo's book that I can't seem to get familiar with.Using mild heat to get them into shape too I'm sure is used.Or maybe a form type jig board to get the shape too.I made my bows according to Jefferey Schmidts way of doing things.Grooving and wrap glueing etc.Got pics if I'm not understood completely.
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Mike, where's that full draw
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The stiffest material in a composite is the wood. The wood gives the bow its shape. That is why you should use a thick core to start with. Jeffery's video is useful but he makes many 'mistakes'. I understand that he figured out a personal method but the old guys knew exactly what they were doing and every single step has solid reasoning behind it. When I first started making composites I had to stop myself from experimenting with different ways to do things....Follow the old methods 100%. If you have Adams book just disengage the brain and follow exactly what he says.
The shape is a combination of the shape of the steam bent core pre horn glue-up. Then the width and thickness tapers you use once you are shaping the core/horn for sinewing.If your bow doesn't bend in the correct way when first braced you will have a hard time.
Those clamp on form thingies are called teplics and the reason for their use is to be able to bend the limbs to a position close to brace without having to actually brace the bow. They will show up twist pre-bracing. They are also very useful for bracing the bow the first time so you aren't fighting all the reflex when the bow could still be twisted.
Heat can be used to correct twist and the curvature of the kasan eyes (Turkish bows) but should NOT be used on the sals when the bow is strung.
I'd strongly recommend using Adams book!
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Mike, where's that full draw
Still waiting for the bow to be ready!
I'm about halfway through decorating it....To do the miniature stuff your brain needs to be in the right place. Then there is the varnishing which takes a few days....
I'll get a good picture when i'm done.
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Yes I've got Karpo's book.Got lucky a few years ago and got one sent to me.Was'nt cheap if I recall.
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Here is a video of my two decorated hornbows. Shooting and chrono video to come.
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Here is a video of my two decorated hornbows. Shooting and chrono video to come.
I don't see anything..
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Mike you tease! No link, you're killin' me Smalls!
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Sorry!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBDxBDHiKA0
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Yikes!!
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Mike, those are absolutely magnificent.
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Wow, very impressive!
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Oh...oh my...um, if anyone needs me I'll be spending some "alone time" with that purple war bow....ahem...
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Oh man!!! Stunning...and...well search every comparable adjective to stunning and there ya go! Love the finish work.
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I think magnificent sums them up nicely.
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Oh wow! Quite astonishing. Where do you get the horn from?
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Thanks guys :)
It's certainly a prized possession now!
I got the horn from a man in Thailand.
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That's a bow you can pass down to your children, oh btw, can you adopt me?
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Wow, that is killer work Mike. I ddint know you were up to these bows. It was on my list for awhile, but I just dont seem to have the time to relearn bow-making all over again :) Glad you are! Do you feel like the extra effort is yielding extra performance? All that reflex has to be providing a lot of energy.
Much much respect to you Mike.
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Wow, that is killer work Mike. I ddint know you were up to these bows. It was on my list for awhile, but I just dont seem to have the time to relearn bow-making all over again :) Glad you are! Do you feel like the extra effort is yielding extra performance? All that reflex has to be providing a lot of energy.
Much much respect to you Mike.
Kind words Carson :) Thank you.
I know what you mean but I haven't touched another bow since I finished this one. If you get the inspiration to make one (two,three...!)I think you will find that they are more than worth it. Sure they are more work but not really all that much. The actual time doing something would be about a week(undecorated), the rest of the time is just sitting on your hands waiting!
The way they feel when drawing and then that first shot at full draw....when you let go of the string and it feels like nothing at all just happened but the arrow disappearing confirms that yes you did actually just shoot it! Go on you know you want to make one!
The hardest thing for me has been learning to shoot with the thumbring. Firstly they are a nightmare to get dead right and having shot three fingers for years it was quite hard to accept being a complete amateur who couldn't hit a barn door again....but it's coming together now and last night we set a target at 140yds and I got a good few hits and the consistency is coming back.
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Niice! Learning to shoot with thumb draw mediocrely seems like nothing compared to making a horn bow.
Thinking of getting Adam Swoboda's book...
Have you had any problems with twist?
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Yes that book is good. I just wish it had some pictures of the inside of thumbrings....lots of pictures looking from above but it has been hard for me to get the shape right and i'm still not sure I have!
No twist problems with this bow. She is super stable now. I think that the 6months seasoning period is very important from a stability point of view. They are definitely more flippy floppy prior to that. The other thing is that fully dried glue is stronger and able to withstand sufficient heat for any corrections to be permanent with no creep back to the original position.
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Nice. I think I might've screwed up my hornbow I got from Tc with sloppy stringing and uneven tepeliks.. :\ hopefully I can correct the twist it got. At least it's shootable.
Getting a good thumb ring is critical to being able to shoot comfortably. I pad a Vermil Victory ring that's a bit too big for me with leather inside like the "kulak" or the "leaf of wanlan" described here:
(https://static.pcout.in/1e4ab5f1-eb39-414b-89cf-958cb027fbaa.png)
http://www.thumbringarchery.org/blog/entry/based-on-the-fragment-from-the-book-the-art-of-shooting-a-short-reflexed-bow-with-a-thumb-ring
I made a fake leather thumb guard like this. It tended to slip off and go flying on release sometimes, tying it to my wrist helped against that .Maybe it should've been made of actual tough leather and tighter on my thumb.
https://picasaweb.google.com/101229348267498449698/HowToMakeALeatherThumbGuard?feat=embedwebsite
When I switched from the Kaya KTB thumb glove to a thumb ring, I was getting the string ripping off skin on my index and hitting the tip of my thumb. This was alleviated by getting used to putting the index further from the string, my particular leather inside the ring being long and protecting the tip of the thumb? and.. dunno, a clean release? The Turkish thumb rings are tiny..
good luck
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I'll see about snapping some pics of my thumb ring when I get home tonight. I made mine out of PVC, I cut it right out of the side of an old pipe, the pipe was maybe 3" across and probably 1/4" think, maybe. I wanted it a little thicker around the hole so the string wont bite your thumb, basically the old vermil style, so I cut out the long oval shape and then a circular shape as well. I used CA glue to glue the circular piece to the "top" of the oval and then drilled a hole in the center and used one of those cone shaped rotary grinder heads to enlarge it and made a slope towards the tip on the inside. It's very easy to customize the fit this way as the PVC is relatively soft material and sands/grinds away well. Once it fit relatively well I put it in the microwave and heated it up until it was fairly pliable (use tongs, lol) and used that to put a curve in the tip (until this point the whole thing was basically straight perpendicular to my thumb except for the sloping in the hole). Then I just reduced the outside dimensions, rounded the circular "top" of the ring, rounded the edges on the tip etc. I made about four or five before I got this perfect one but it was the first four or five I've ever attempted and I'm not real great with my hands. Also the first one with this double thick design was the perfect one so the others may have sucked just from the thinness of the ring. One of the cool things with PVC is when you heat it up in the microwave it gets kinda tan with browner highlights and looks just like bone, I've had so many folks ask me what kind of bone it is, lol.
Edit: I found one photo I already had...
(http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/rr316/Urufu_Shinjiro/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20160129_123134_zpsddvoul51.jpg)
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(http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/rr316/Urufu_Shinjiro/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20160425_083651_zpsc89pdonf.jpg)
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Mike......Saw your video of your 2 horn bows.Kuddos to your dedication/research and follow through to make such bows.I'm sure the use and function of them is totally rewarding.Your finish work is super.
I have made the holmgaard version types like your first too in the 60" length range.Love the performance of them.Have used hickory and maple for cores/gemsbok for horn/and elk leg sinew.Usually just start out with around 10" reflex.Then tiller it to shoot with anywhere from 5 to 8 inches of usable reflex.Trick with these as you know one gets made after another is to estimate thicknesses for draw weight so as to leave as much horn on belly as possible while tillering.Probably not quite the performance of your typical type horn bow but still not bad.Have another curing at this time to.
As mentioned earlier I do have a couple of horn bows in construction.I'll see if I can follow through with them.
Thanks for posting your bows.They are wonderful to look at.
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Mike. How wide and thick are the sals at their widest and thickest point? I am making 2 Turkish bows right now 50 and 52 inches and they weigh about 500 grams and are 34 mm wide and 13mm thick. I fear they are both about 100 #. Please post your dimensions. Thanks and great job.
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BrokenArrow - I'd be interested to see them! Mine is shorter at 48 inch ntn and has now settled at 63#@28 (I've only just got round to weighing it) the sals at mid point between fades and kasan eye are 31mm x 10mm.
Even though your bows are longer I suspect that 13mm thick sals are going to give you quite some weight! Where are you measuring 13mm? What are the measurements mid sal?
How thick is your horn?
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100#, so period weights then, lol.
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Mike, how do you do your joint between horn and belly? Deep matched toothing grooves, flat, or flat and roughened up? Do you use fish glue?
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Mike,
I will post a pics tonight.
It is 48 inches NTN and weighs 500 grams.(No leather yet)
I measured at the widest point in the sal.
Wood and horn combined before sinew from about 15 to 40 cms has thickness of between 9 and 10mm.
If the weight is not dropping would you say it is fully dried?
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Mike, how do you do your joint between horn and belly? Deep matched toothing grooves, flat, or flat and roughened up? Do you use fish glue?
Sorry only just seen your question.....On this one I used 2mm deep matching grooves and a mix of sinew and hide glue. The fish bladder glue from yellow croakers is very good (slower gelling) and is what I've been using on my last couple of hornbows since the one in this post.
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Mike, how were your chrono results, and can you please give us force draw numbers? I am trying my hardest to recreate horn bow performance with a pure osage self bow and would like a base line for comparison please. This bow is perfect as it is in the same size ntn and poundage I am trying to emulate.
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I can't remember off the top of my head....I'm sure I wrote it all down somewhere, I will have to have a look and see if I can find them. I haven't measured the force/draw curve but I will. If you can make an osage bow with such string tension at brace....i'll be surprised!! ;)
I've got another Turkish bow almost ready to be tillered now. It has more reflex i the bending limbs than I've seen before on a working bow....IF I can get it strung and to full draw I think it will be quite special. I also have a Magyar (kind of) bow just about ready - it's force draw curve might be a better challenge for a wooden bow.
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My ~58# Magyar bow (from my recent thread) has so much string tension, I can't imagine a heavier Turkish bow O_o It's already way more than in any of my glass pony bows..
Good luck
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I can't find all my fps stats on this bow.....
But I just shot a couple of arrows with it for you. I'll do some more if you want? Anyway 320 grain arrow - 235 fps. This bow makes me smile whenever I shoot it :)
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Thanks I appreciate that.
That is straight up moving! Now I just need to calculate the amount of kenetic energy in that arrow and compare it to what I make.
One of these days mike, Im gonna have to find a way to get you to make me a bow.
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(http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i411/rocketernally/Screenshot_20160826-142035_zpsiufaud5y.png) (http://s1092.photobucket.com/user/rocketernally/media/Screenshot_20160826-142035_zpsiufaud5y.png.html)
According to realtree this is what your bow comes out to.
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(http://i1092.photobucket.com/albums/i411/rocketernally/Screenshot_20160826-143307_zpsouz0ee4l.png) (http://s1092.photobucket.com/user/rocketernally/media/Screenshot_20160826-143307_zpsouz0ee4l.png.html)
And this is mine. Both our bows are very close in stats. Mine is 49 ttt and 65@26. I believe I can get better numbers and do as well as your horn bow with just a self bow of osage.
Im using your bows as a reference to guage how well I do on mine.I hope you don't mind.
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Yet supposedly 50# is enough for any game... that thing is for compounds with light arrows?
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Loon, there is much more to it than that. This has 0 to do with bows period. It has to do with arrows energy level. The arrow doesnt care what gave it that energy. We are only measuring arrow energy and I am trying to make all wooden bows that can deliver the same energy a horn bow can by staying the same size tip to tip.
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I think so much of these kind of "punch it in " stat's is BS. A gimmick to get you to buy into buying more gadgets. A few years ago when I was hunting in Tenn. a young man shooting a bow I think was around 30# killed two of the nicest Bucks I've seen come from that area since I've had the chance to hunt there.
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>65 foot-pounds recommended for biggest game
< 25 ft. lbs.
Small Game (rabbit, groundhog, etc.)
25-41 ft. lbs.
Medium Game (deer, antelope, etc.)
42-65 ft. lbs.
Large Game (elk, black bear, wild boar, etc.)
> 65 ft. lbs.
I think momentum might matter more for us.. and that may be a bit overkill
what I mean is that this is probably meant for compound shooters who shoot really light fast arrows
I double-checked the KE using wolfram alpha and it was right
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F2+*+571+*+155%5E2+grains*fps%5E2+to+foot-pounds (http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F2+*+571+*+155%5E2+grains*fps%5E2+to+foot-pounds)
Still, KE usually increases with heavier arrows?
Sorry, it was hard to not derail the topic after seeing that "oh yeah only for smaller deer" thing
anyway good luck, would like to see turkish hornbows matched with osage :o
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I don't think you can "Cookie Cutter" it for bows using natural products, especially Horn bows.
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Ek = 1/2mv2. So just convert grains to kg and velocity to meters per second.
The thing with Turkish bows is that they don't really come into their own until you make them around 100# plus. Think of them as two parts working in unison. Bending inner limbs (sals) and the non bending outers limbs and tips (kasans/tips). The outer limbs for a 50# bow need to be the same dimensions as for a 100# bow. This is so that the bow can be tillered into stability, if you tried to make the 50# bows outer limbs proportionately smaller than the 100# bow you would have zero chance of it being stable.
Adam Karpowzi shows this in his book and offers a ratio of weight to draw weight as a good indicator of performance. The best bows will have a ratio of around 3, this bow is more like 6.5 (lower = better!). I've just started tillering a heavy bow and it weighs 320 grams and is definitely going to be close to 100# = 3.2.
There is no reason a wooden bow shouldn't be able to get close to what a lighter weight composite can do. The lighter the composite the smaller the gap and below 50# the wooden bow will likely win.
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Thanks for that Mike. I would have never known otherwise. It is still my goal though to make self bows that can hang at least side by side their horn counterparts. You got me thinking about a 100 pounder now....48 inches ttt, 28 inches lf draw.... man, that would be fun. Especially if I could find somebody else to test fire it!
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what if one uses poplar or pine or something for the tips and kasan sections instead, for more lightweight bows?
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what if one uses poplar or pine or something for the tips and kasan sections instead, for more lightweight bows?
How many old bows do you see with pine tips!?! ;)
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Here are the force/draw numbers - 10.6#@10 , 20.2#@12 , 26.1#@14 , 30#@16 , 34.4#@18 , 38.3#@20 , 42.2#@22 , 47.8#@24 , 53.3#@26 , 61.6#@28
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The only non-asiatic bows that interest me are the English war bows, and with the technique they use during the draw I can see shooting 100+ lbs with those, but man I can't imagine drawing a 100lb turkish bow. I can draw my 50lb manchu all day no problem but I can tell much more than that and I would start to struggle, lol.
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Well, I got my osage sinew version shooting 174fps with a 571 gr arrow. Ke is 38.38. I could get more if I built another that hasnt been abused as this one has.
Mike, thanks for letting me hijack your thread.
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Yoowza!!!!That's a fantastic bow Mike.The numbers progess like you want them?I imagine so.....lol.Really gets a jump start in the beginning.Very impressive to say the least.How does it feel to shoot towards the end?Still kinda like a big rubber band?
Looks like your gonna be doing a lot of finish work come this winter.That'll take some time to figure what you want too.You've been steadily cranking fantastic work out there for us to see.Gives everyone something to ponder in the future.Thanks for sharing.
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The only non-asiatic bows that interest me are the English war bows, and with the technique they use during the draw I can see shooting 100+ lbs with those, but man I can't imagine drawing a 100lb turkish bow. I can draw my 50lb manchu all day no problem but I can tell much more than that and I would start to struggle, lol.
Yes I know what you mean...a lot of the old bows in the Topaki museum are even heavier than 100#. I guess years of training would take care of that.
Beadman - yes the numbers are nice! It feels great to shoot, as you say heavy initially then like a 45#er the rest of the way :) It doesn't stack until about 29 1/2 - 30. Me and a few friends shoot at about 200yds in a field we have and it constantly surprises me how little evevation it needs to make the distance :) You can see why they put the effort into making these bows back in the day.
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Just to go 'off piste' a little, if this (Turkish) style of hornbow only comes into its own at +100#, what style would you suggest works well for a -45# light-weight horn bow?
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Just with that slight elevation would be something to see at 200 yards.Make ya kinda stop inbetween shots and look at that bow huh.....lol.Trouble is you have to carry binoculars to see where you hit right????Is 40 degrees roughly the standard elevation for the longest distance attempts?
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Just to go 'off piste' a little, if this (Turkish) style of hornbow only comes into its own at +100#, what style would you suggest works well for a -45# light-weight horn bow?
I made a horn bow that is similar to a holmguaard and it shoots really well @ 60#.
Beadman - my eyes are pretty good but yes no chance of seeing where you have hit...the target makes a good noise so you know if you've hit just not where!
I think it is 43 degs mathematically if memory serves?
So I shot my Turkish bow with a 570 grain or 9 gpp arrow and the speed averages out at 196 fps. I shot some carbons through it and was getting 225 - 230fps...will have to check their weights though as I can't remember now!
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Which bow was giving you those speeds mike?
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do you know what wood the lighter puta or other training target bows used for the tips/kasan? same as war bows?
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Which bow was giving you those speeds mike?
The blue and black 48 incher, the one that this thread was started for. It's a shame I don't have any longer arrows suitable for it...as I said before this bow at 48 inch should really be shot at 30. You would see the performance rise again @ 30.
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do you know what wood the lighter puta or other training target bows used for the tips/kasan? same as war bows?
Maple. Also these bows would have slightly degraded performance as they were tillered to bend a lot in the inner limbs. This would lead to set there but also easy stringing and drawing (due to the different leverage). The species of wood isn't really important other than not using a very dense wood.