Dave Mead style bows

[bassman]

3 bows I built out of Bamboo slats, scraps of  Maple ,Hickory, Osage. 48 to 50 inches long. 35 to 40 lb draw weight at 25.5 inches. 7 and 8 strands of B55 for the strings. Fun to shoot, and not bad speed wise. I cut arrow shelves in the bows to make them easier to shoot. Generic horse bows. I get one ,and my 2 grandsons get the other two. They love shooting bows. This will make 10 bows a piece for them now. Things to remember pappy by.

[rps3]

Pretty cool. I  hope you get lots of shooting fun with them.

[willie]

I Like the lash-on approach. Do you do much experimentation by just cutting off a tip or handle and lashing on another?

two shooting grandkids must keep the arrow maker busy!

[bassman]

Yes willie. I have glued, and unglued, and lashed ,and unlashed more than once playing around with shortening the limbs, putting sharper angles on the siyahs, belly heat treating, shorter, or longer handles etc,etc. My Bamboo slats are not thick enough to make a heavier weight bow with longer sharper siyahs to get real performance like Dave Mead does on his bows. He gets very good velocities out of his short , and simple designed bows. The handle, and tips are glued on first with hot glue, then lashed. He uses light maple for the handles,and siyahs, and his siyahs have holes drilled in them to reduce weight, and are made very thin. I think he sales them for a living. If he v spliced his tips in he could pick up more speed, but for speed of production I think he just glues ,and wraps them on. I watched him break a limb one time exercising it over his knee, and cut  the string melted the glue off, and replace the limb just that fast. Not an option we have with our self bows. Check out his web sight.

[Hamish]

 
These type of bows are pretty cool. Dave has some interesting theories about performance. His bow designs seem to work really well, simple to make, thinking outside the box to achieve a great result.

Aesthetically I'm not really a fan. Its just  a personal, cosmetic prejudice, not a negative criticism of performance or function.  I just prefer the look and feel of a more polished bow. That being said I have been tempted to make one myself.

[Yooper Bowyer]

As a compromise you could make the two limbs and handle out of a single piece of wood and lash on the tips.  That's the way I would start. 

Those recurves are my favorite part; I may have to give it a try

[bassman]

I have done that with short bows that have taken excessive set from builders errors.  Makes them longer ,lowers the poundage,and easier to pull, and bumps the speed up. I still have a 53 inch Elm bow set up that way that I like to shoot.

[bassman]

Hamish I polished mine with wax. Does that count??!!!!!!! He sinew backs some taking them to the next level ,and snake skins them with black handles. Nice looking bows. You could do that. if you are looking for pop.

[Hamish]

 Bassman, A coat of wax on any bow is a plus in my book.
The snake skins etc sound like a good idea too.

I recently saw a video, where a guy uses a special breed of thick  walled bamboo(looks about 3/8" or more) to make a heavy weight bow. I'd like to try some of that boo, if I can remember what its called and can track some down. I have a feeling it might be the same type of boo that the Bhutanese make their bows from.

[bassman]

Ya, their bamboo is tough enough to use the belly for the back, and the back for the belly. Back their bamboo with sinew, and snake skin, with a nice set of light ,thin Maple siyahs and I would think you would have one heck of a bow. As a matter of fact I am thinking of sinew backing the bamboo that I have right now, and making a better set of siyahs just to see the results.