ipe instead of horn belly?

[snedeker]

I have a mind to try an Asiatic composit inspired bow using a strip of Ipe on the belly instead of horn, with working recurves.  I have a 1/8 strip of ipe that for about 60 inches, follows a ring.  I was thinking of using hackberry (have a couple slats) for the core and making a 59 inch bow, sinewed, relfexed and recurved, then adding the ipe strip to the belly.  There was a northern chinese tradition with these specs (of course with horn).  With my vision troubles, I don't think I can manage horn and siyahs.  Sound like a plan?  The guy's kid's horn bow inspired me.   Maybe I'll to a buildalong with it later this summer. 

I just glued on hard backing for the first time in seven months and it felt good.  Little hickory backed osage r/d

Dave

[welch2]

Sounds like the makings of a nice bow. There was a bow in PA magazine years ago ,that had siyahs but no horn .It was a osage bow. I think the article was titled 'an Osage Horn Bow' or something like that.

Glad my little bow's inspired you, I feel humbled.

Ralph

[Pat B]

Dave My first ipe bow was hickory backed. I made it short and wide and when done the hickory backing was thicker than the ipe belly. The bow looked funny but shot very well. Ipe is some tough stuff. Looking forward to seeing your Ipe horn bow.    Pat

[medicinewheel]

dave!  -  sounds like a plan to me!

frank

PS: yes ralph's little hornbow is inspiring.

[tom sawyer]

I honestly don't know what relation it will have to an Asiatic style if it doesn't have siyahs or a horn belly, but it sounds like an EXCELLENT design.  Lightweight core, sinew, good belly wood, recurves.  Its all there.  I'll be interested in seeing how your working recurves come out, those are one of the biggest selfbowyering challenges in my opinion.  RyanO had one at the TN Classic that was awesome.  I think sinew will help you out tremendously there, get it bent in some nice reflex and let the sinew keep it for you..

[sagitarius boemoru]

I have this idea for some time already - I thought about making magyar bow with Ipe instead of horn. It will work. Not the same thickness as Ipe is stiffer, but it will....

Jaro

[Dane]

Jaro, I guess a few of us are thinking of Asiatic bows. Mine is going to be traditional, with water buffalo belly, wood core, and sinew back (all the materials are in place, just no time right now to get to it), but I am really interested in yours and other's interpretations of this kind of bow. And they are just so cool looking, never mind the many benefits derived from composites.

I guess bow design is like living languages, and keeps evolving and growing.

Dane

[tom sawyer]

You'll need to make the working limbs somewhat longer I think.  Horn is a lot better in compression than ipe.  Probably at least twice as strong.  I'd make the siyahs correspondingly shorter to make up for this longer limb.  And I wouldn't push the reflex, that'll only crank on that belly even more.

Speaking of horn bows, I am finishing up an sorta Asiatic composite horn bow right now.  The pics are in with another bow, but you can look through and find the front and side profile and the full draw profile.  I think most of the details are with the pics.


http://groups.msn.com/LenniesBowPage/abcwannabes.msnw?Page=1

[Dane]

Lennie, very nice. Have you posted the basic specs? (long day, so maybe I just missed them). Thanks. I especially liked the pics of you bracing the bow. There is a video somewhere on the large Asiatic site (spacing on the name) that shows a Hungarian traditional bow being braced...step though method. If I recall right, the Korean bow tapes (long show but interesting stuff in there if you can watch all 4 hours) show a guy bracing that style bow by basically sitting cross legged on the bow, and using heat to adjust the tiller.

Dane

[tom sawyer]

ATARN.  And I have the Korean bowmaking DVD, it was informative.

My bow is upwards of 70lb@27".  Its not really a specific design, and I cheated and used resorcinol glue on the oryx honr belly strips.  Plus I used 1/4 horn strips and cut them in half and turned them so its really two thin horn pieces on each limb.

[markinengland]

I have a similar one-day plan. I'd like to make a bow using Ipe belly and bamboo back with siyahs. I guess it would need to be made longer and maybe wider than a horn bow but the idea is stuck in my mind and I can't let it go!
Please post a build along as you go.
Mark in England

[Dane]

ATARN.  And I have the Korean bowmaking DVD, it was informative.

My bow is upwards of 70lb@27".  Its not really a specific design, and I cheated and used resorcinol glue on the oryx honr belly strips.  Plus I used 1/4 horn strips and cut them in half and turned them so its really two thin horn pieces on each limb.

Lennie, thanks. If I can ask a few more questions, did you use a ratio of 1/3 each sinew, core, and horn? I guess the width and the thickness of the three components is what has me most hestitant to begin. As for layers, I am anticpating four or five layers of sinew, but will come to that when I come to that.

And last, I am assuming you attached the ears to the bow with fishtail joints (think that is what they are called). I'll use either ash or osage for the ears.

I'm going to use hide glue, being brave , and score the horn and belly laterally per Jeffery Schmidt's video instruction. As I recall, some Turkish bows were constructured that way.

I think Medicinewheel is also about to make a composite bow. His bamboo wedge gluing technique is great, so thanks for that Medicine.

Dane

[tom sawyer]

Dane, I used a V-splice with the siyah coming to a point.  The siyah was taller than the core, I tapered it doen to the thickness of the core only at the tip.  I overlaid the sinew over this joint.  Also, since my horn strips weren't long enough to cover the joint on the belly side, I used a thin piece of walnut to bolster this area, and I wrapped sinew around the end of the horn on both ends.  My horn was also too short to overlay the handle, so I uised a piece of osage as my spacer there.  I used a piece of walnut on the handle on the back side, and went over that with sinew before wrapping the "fade" areas with sinew.  I ended up covering the sinew with silk and painting that.  I used black walnut for siyahs because it is lightweight, and I oriented the grain so that the grain runs parallel to the length of the siyah, not the bow.  This lets the string pull against the walnut without it plitting into a particular ring.  The string is oriented diagonal to the grain this way, I thought that was safer.

How much of each (sinew, horn and core) is the 64000 question.  I used horn strips taht were maybe 1/8", I used a bamboo core that was something like 1/4", and I used a generous layer of sinew that probably dried down to about 1/8".  This was for a 50" total length bow with little limb reflex and maybe 30 degree angles on the siyahs.  It came out quite heavy, probably in the 80lb range.  So I worked the horn belly some, it works well with a scraper.  I beveled the belly too, and worked the sides a bit as well.  Its still a bit stiffer than I like pulling, I measured it at 70lb but it may be a somewhat less than that now.  Next time I'll use a slightly skinnier core.  Someone else on ATARN made one about the time I was working on this, and it came out too light.  I didn't want that so I intentionally erred on the heavy side.  Keep in mind that longer means less hard bend and therefore thicker limb for a given weight.  And wider means heavier for a given thickness.  I "winged it" on this, but I have a little experience and did some reading first.  You might want to copy a bow someone made or an artifact when you make one.

[Dane]

Thanks for the advice and insights. It is all in line with my thoughts. I wonder what you would have ended up with if your core was also 1/8"?

The only certainty on my bow the dimensions of the ears, from an archeological find at Bar Hill, a bone stiffener from a Roman auxillary bow. My interest in Roman military archery is what really promoted me to think about composite bows in the first place. The other big Roman archery project I have right now is a scorpian I've begun construction on, but that is for another topic and time.

 

[tom sawyer]

I thought about adding bone plates to the siyahs, it would be a nice touch.  You'll probably want to reduce the thickness of the siyahs so the bone won't be adding weight unneccessarily.

Reducing the core to 1/8", is probably as good a guess as any.  You'd leave the horn full thickness and just bevel the edges a bit.  I'd be tempted to make it a little thicker, just because you can lighten it but you can't beef it up.  And it takes relatively little reduction in thickness to effect a significant change in poundage.