Using materials I already have

[stevedrough]

Hey guys
I'm about to start building my second bow. My first bow was a molgobet bow design by Mike  from boariorbows. I made it out of cheap ash and it broke. I learnt a lot though. I'm going to make another out of maple and backed with rawhide.
I want to make some other bows too. Any idea that i can make with these materials? And which ones would be best combos for core, belly and backing.
These are the materials I have been  able to get hold of.
4mm x 50mm 6ft strips of bamboo cut from bamboo ply.
100mm x 20mm 3ft lengths of bamboo flooring.
90mm x 90mm 8ft length of maple.
100mm x 20mm 8ft length of Elm floor boards.
Rawhide
Same small lengths of beech and sapele too.

[aaron]

much will depend on the grain in the boards- pictures, please.
What is boo ply?
The boo flooring might make a belly material.I have a bow with boo flooring belly.
My advice is to go for a rawhide backed board bow, not a trilam. Keep it simple.

[Badger]

  Stev, I think I would start with self bows if I were you, just one piece of wood. Board bows are a good place to start and learn how to tiller. Board selection is everything! before you start the next bow learn how to select a board, it has to be straight grained or it will break. I see you have some elm, elm tends to be more forgiving than a lot of woods if you have a run out.

[mikekeswick]

Your ash bow likely broke not because it was cheap but because the grain was poor.
I'd do a rawhide backed maple.

[crooketarrow]

  No afence but maybe you'd should start a little easyer.
  Buy a osage stave keep the lenth in the mid 60's 1 1/8, 1 1/4 wide.

 A bow thats hard to mess up, never break.

[stevedrough]

Hi.
Thanks for your reply
I'd look to make one out of an Osage stave but here in England I am struggling  to find any. And if I do it very expensive.  £100 for a stave to be shipped over from the USA. Once I'm better at making bows ill be happier to spend more on the materials. In the hope I'll be making better bows.
I've decided  to make two molgobet style bows out of the maple I have.
Both have different  grains so ill be able to see that happens with differ grains. I'll probably one with rawhide and the other with boo. Would it work with bamboo? I've heard people say maple might over power the bamboo. Or something like that. How will I know if it was over powered? What would I look for.

[George Tsoukalas]

Why not start with a simple bend in the handle bow, steveedrough, with no glued on handles and with no narrowing of the handle. There are directions in my site and you can modify the width to 1 3/8" for 45-50# if you tiller well.

Watch the grain.

Jawge

http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/boardbowbuildalong.html

[stevedrough]

Thanks George but I want to make a different  style of bow. I've made one before. It was o ly about 20#. I shot 20 arrows from it but I added a recurve  and it cracked. Plus it had about 3 inches of string follow.
Looking forward  to making another.
I feel it's great just diving in and making a bow. I've learnt so much. Having it brake just makes me want to make a better one. The only hard part is finding good timber and having time to build it with a baby at home. 

[bubby]

A molly isn't the easiest design to pull off, a pyramid or even a alb might be two designs you might want to try or maybe a meare heath bow

[bradsmith2010]

+1 what Jawge said,, you will have a better chance of success, and a straight bow can really perform as well,,it is more forgiving of run out etc,,

[Springbuck]

I fond Mollies the easiest to pull off, for some reason, and the rest tougher.  I can't explain it, but I do.

Steve, can yopu possibly chase a ring on anu of the elm flooring?  If so, do you have enough thickness for a bow?  Or, can you glue up enough thickness?  Elm, all elm, is good stuff if designed around.

  Can you back an elm stave with the rawhide?  Or the maple?  The maple might make a self-board bow, if the grain is ok.

  Bamboo flooring is fine stuff, but it takes a lot of set.  It just seems to.  I had the best luck with that stuff glueing up in a trilam, where I added reflex to backing and middle, then glued it into about the same reflex again when I added the belly.  The backing/core/belly should be 25/25/50, or 30/30/40 thickness ratios.  This kind of gets fancy, but I made some great R/D bows out of bamboo flooring.

[bambam]

I tried the vertical strand bamboo flooring and have nothing good to say about the stuff. Red oak makes a great board bow. I made 2 oak longbows out of it. One with rawhide backing, the other with linen backing. Both turned out great with very little set.