K guys, I know I don't got no pics, my camera has some kind of decease or something, but this is just insane. I just have to gab about this freaking bow. So,...... I was in the process of making a red oak pyramid bow with 5 1/2" siyahs also of red oak glued and wrapped on. Just finished wrapping the glued on siyahs with linen thread soaked in tb2, (which works great btw, holds AND looks just like sinew wraps.), got the string bridges glued on and was ready to get to tiller check and string. I ONLY make pyramid bows anymore, and from that only from boards. I have made alot of bows from staves, and although making a bow from a tree you cut yourself can be almost a spiritual thing at times, making bows from boards is just more appealing to me for many reasons. Like convenience, labor, the ability to get ALMOST exactly what you want instead of having to take what the stave has to give you. Bows from boards can be an affordable and extremely pleasing hobby. Which is what I enjoy. Contrasting to bows from staves, which is a profession. IMHO. Can't do it no more. It's just too cold at night to sit out there swinging a hatchet. And the reason for only pyramid bows is laziness. Or effectiveness. Either way, if makes a perfect circular tiller without having to tiller, and I like that. I'm done with staves. I'm done with fighting on my tiller tree. Maybe when I get some better tools I will change my mind, but god, it's like this for me. This is the kinda person I am. My wife is totally the opposite. When she makes spaghetti she just eyeballs it. Little by little I think she adds the spices. NEVER uses a recipe. Always comes out tasty, always comes out good. ... Now... When I try to make spaghetti, .... WIthout a recipe I add a little of this. And a little of that. And then a little more of this. And then that. And pretty soon, before ya know it, ... It's in the trash. I CANNOT cook without a recipe for nothing. I admit a lack of patience is mostly at play. I admit I get aggravated too easily. Once again a main factor in giving up staves.
But thats just me. But I do love cooking. And I cook like I make bows, write down everything I do, try this, give it to the birds. Write down what I did wrong. Try it again. Write down everything. Write down what might be the problem, and try it again just to test and see it if I was right. I have some GREAT recipes, just from experimenting over and over and over, writing everything down, until I get exactly what I want. So, although I may be an easily frustrated person, and have an issue for deciphering the point of perfection without going over the limit to too much, I can still do things that take patience by going about it in little process until I have an exact recipe to go by. Anyway, works for me. You can see that my cooking might transfer over to my bow making..
ANYWAY...., (got off track there), about this bow I made and what happened. Recipe was as follows:
- Red oak board from somewhere or nother,... Plan to draw 50# at 28", at
only 42" working limb!
- 58" end to end before siyahs are glued on, 54" after. Actually 51" if you count the 1 1/2" thickness fades on the limbs, which you probably should, seeing as they don't work at all.
- 9" non working handle, directly in center of the bow
- 5 1/2" siyahs with 2" glue up length
- Pyramid taper from 3 1/2" width to 1 1/4" width. One thing I was wanting to see (or actually try, I knew it would work mostly from people on here like badger/steve sharing their experience on it, but I was just wanting to see if you made a pyramid bow that tapered to a wider end, like an inch or over, it would result in a perfect circular tiller just like the typical pyramid bow where it goes to about 1/2" or so at the tip. And it worked nicely. Perfect circular "no need to fuss with tiller" tiller. So yall were right.
- Thickness (after 1 1/2" thickness fades) at a constant 1/4". This is the thinnest bow I have ever made. I was very worried about the tiler being off, I reduce the belly thickness mostly with a rasp, kinda was worried about that. But it turned out fine. I was also worried about the bow being so thin for another reason, that being backing the bow with linen. I couldn't figure out if
1) the linen would crush the belly from it being so thin, making it easier than a thick belly to crush, or
2) the thinness of the bow would make the belly less prone to be overpowered by the linen backing because there is less compression in general going on opposed to a thicker belly where wood is compressed more; in other words, the reason "
wider thinner " can bend more. (Because there is less belly pushing the back fibers apart from it being thinner, according to my understanding. IMO the bow being wider only makes it bend more without breaking due to stretching the load of the stress put on the bow, allowing a good weight bow with a thinner thickness. The thinner thickness being the main factor contributing to the bow not breaking. Same principle of why a longer bow bends more. If you take a bow that is 1/2" THICK, and make it 10" LONGER, then it will bend more. But you didn't add any thickness. So isn't also bending more due to thickness reduction? Theres a mind boggle for ya!
Anyhow, backed it with 100% linen from joann fabrics, using tb2.
Well what happened to the bow is one of the siyahs were not in line I found out this morning when I tried to get er on the tree and strung up. Bow didn't work, twisted horribly string popped off the string bridge when drawing. Lost my temper (I know, I'm a idiot.) And I tryed to break it. Both siyahs broke due to not being wrapped enough. I only wrapped em close to the tips where all the stress would be on the siyahs. I mean the tips of the tapered glued to the limb part on the siyah, where the glue up would fail first before coming off. But I tried and I tried to break this little 1/4" thick bow. MAN it would not break! I swear I could wrap it like a pretzel if I wanted! I was thnking it would break easily! This is my first linen backing and I am sold. So I didn't just glue the siyahs on the 1 1/4" wide ends on the limbs, but I tapered the last inch width of the limbs with a stylish little taper so it didn't look dumb, so it comes to a 1/2" width that the siyahs are. After wrapping it with tb2 soaked linen, you can't even tell siyah isn't v spliced or not (its just glued on top of the limb). So after the siyah's broke, I was left with these little 1/2" points, just like a indian style flatbow nock. Or the nock on the meare heath. Even wrapped with tb2 soaked linen thread, masquerading as sinew wrappings,
. So After trying angry as all get out, almost jumping on this little bows limbs trying to break em, with no success, I just string it up from the new meare heath style nocks. Looks good! Test on the tree, up to 28", looks perfect, nocks haven't broken yet. So far so good,
. Couldn't believe the tiller was perfect after trying to break the friggin thing! Took it out to shoot, and it shoots fine! It's kinda scary cause the nocks are almost straight at you at 28", anymore the string would come off I would think. After trying to break in an immature little fit, and with little bits of broken siyahs still attached, it came out at exactly 50# at 28" (what I wanted) and only 2 1/2" of set! LoL! If our camera wasn't screwed I was going to take a video of how much this bow would bend on the tree until it broke, but I think I need to buy a new card or something. Oh yeah, no chrysals either. I think just because it's so thin? Point of this huge crazy long post:
I'm sold on linen backings!
