Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Eric Garza on August 27, 2016, 01:02:53 pm
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Greetings folks, it occurs to me that it's been a long time since I've last shared any of my work here. I thought I'd remedy that by posting a few photographs of this fall's hunting bow, which I'm just finishing up. In honor of the many acronyms (HHB, BBI, BBO, HBI, ETC) I see floating around to describe various types of bows and the wood(s) they're made of, I'll call this one BOB. This stands for Boring Osage Bow, which describes it pretty well.
The bow was made from an osage orange stave I acquired from Eric Bartels last year, which had been cut and split a few years prior so it was dry and seasoned by the time I received it. The stave was uncharacteristically straight for osage, and there are only a couple pin knots on the finished bow so it was an easy build. And it had fairly thin rings with vanishingly thin early wood, which gave me a lot of confidence in it.
The bow measures 59 inches tip-to-tip, and was laid out in a pyramid style with longish fades that maxed out at 1-3/4 inches wide. The limbs are symmetrical and taper straight to pin nocks that are just over 3/8 inches wide where the string lays over them. It took perhaps 3/4 inches of set throughout tillering, and I expect it to take a little more as it's not shot in yet.
Front-view profile:
(http://ericgarza.info/wp-content/uploads/BOB1.jpg)
Side-view, un-strung:
(http://ericgarza.info/wp-content/uploads/BOB2.jpg)
Side-view, braced:
(http://ericgarza.info/wp-content/uploads/BOB3.jpg)
Full draw:
(http://ericgarza.info/wp-content/uploads/BOB4.jpg)
And the obligatory force-draw graph:
(http://ericgarza.info/wp-content/uploads/FDCurve.jpg)
Comments and questions are welcome!
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Nice bow nothing boring about it no such thing in my book as a boring osage !
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I really got a good chuckle out of the naming of that bow Eric. ;D Nothing boring about a well made hunting bow of osage and that is what BOB looks like to me. Good luck in the woods this season, that bow looks up to the task.
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That should do the job just fine sir!
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A lot of draw out of such a short bow
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Came out great! Jawge
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Sweet looking stick.Good luck with it.
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Oh my God! That truly is most boring bow I have ever seen!
Just kidding man, it looks great and I bet it shoots well also. Its actually nice to see once in a while bow made from "perfect" stave, even though I like character bows with knots more.
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That's a perfect hunting bow. You don't need anything fancy to kill a deer.
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I like the shape of that fd curve.
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Fancy is nice to look at, but it wont make 'em shoot any better. Looks like a keeper right there.
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I think the longer fades and pyramid design match up very well. That may be a simple design, but you executed it very well. Nice!
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I like my bows a little longer, but otherwise, that bow is perfection. I have made some character bows, but only because I didn't want to waste the wood and had no better at the time. That bow is glamorous!
Jim Davis
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Thanks for the kind words everyone!
I like the shape of that fd curve.
I was hoping the early hump would have lasted a bit longer and been more pronounced. I've managed to do that with a few paddle bow designs, but this attempt at a pyramid couldn't swing it. My ideal FD curve has the initial hump just start to turn over so the curve slopes upward as I get to my desired draw length. Maybe I'll need to bend recurves into the next one to see if I can achieve that.
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I like boring. Boring is nice. Wish I could find some boring staves to work with. Good job.
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Nice bow! I like it. It looks like a smooth shooter.
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I like boring. Boring is nice. Wish I could find some boring staves to work with. Good job.
I agree. I'm always on the lookout for boring staves. I've got another osage stave that's more boring than this one, though ideally it would season another couple years before I use it. I also have a similarly boring hickory that's been drying for about 18 months. I suppose I could use it in a pinch, but I'd rather wait at least another year.
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Yeah, and if that is boring, I would be awfully satisfied with that kind of boredom!
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Nice job on the 'boring' bow. I happen to like boring staves and boring bows even better. Nothing wrong with them a-tall. G
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Bob is a nice bow and without all the geegahs you can see the actual bow better. I like the back view and the full draw looks very nice too. Well done.
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Nice straight forward design.You hit that one pretty blame good.
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Looks more like a Zak to me :laugh:
Del
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Who/what is a Zak?
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Who/what is a Zak?
... ok, you asked...
When I was over at the classic... I was sitting chatting to Cody (missilemaster) when they were handing out the prizes.
There was this young lad, all clean cut and shiny with a nice cut fashionably trendy hair cut... his name was called out... "Zak".
I said to Cody, yeah, once upon a time I was a "Zak", young, handsome, clean cut.
He looked at me and said.
Now your more of a "Bob" :laugh:
You had to be there really, it was the laconic way he said it...
Del ;D
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I like this bow and I am a bob myself, but I don't look that good. Best of luck hunting.
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Thanks again for all the kind words! BOB will be fun to hunt with, she has a nice smooth draw.
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Boring is all in the perception. One mans boring is another's dependable. Dependable is what you want in a bow whether its for target or hunting .Looks like a really nice bow to me.
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Simple and elegant, yawn ;)
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Beauty is in Simplicity - Simplicity is Beauty
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Nicely done. I to like them longer but very nice . Arvin
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Beautifully simple. Really like the design.
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Greetings primitive archers. I ended up with Bob, and he is fantastic. Many thanks to Eric on a terrific bow. It's just beautiful in its simplicity. I'll be slinging arrows in the dark and snow tonight.
I'm new to the forum but I've built some successful hickory and oak bows. I own a Dwyer and a Montana, but I'm hooked on selfows. I'm just a wood butcher when it comes right down to it, but I love the anticipation of building bows. You just never quite know what you're gonna get.
Thanks to all of the contributors here. I've learned a ton from your writings...and from my many and sometimes spectacular failures....
Best,
From a Hoosier in the frozen tundra
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I failed to check the date when this thread was started and didn't realize until I ran across my own comment liking the bow! Well, then I went back and took yet another hard look at the bow with a critical eye.
Sure enough...BOW-RING. But you can bore me, baby, eight beats to the bar with bows like this eight days a week. Feel free to shoot that bow to death! Something tells me it will be in there punching no matter how many rounds the fight may be. Eric did right by that stave!
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I like Bob. Well done.
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Well done Eric. Arvin