Finding your demensions

[Badger]

     I just kind of recently started posting here again and reading all the posts. One thing that hasn't changed are the persistent questions looking for specific reference points regarding the different stages of bow making. Some guys like the math stuff, some hate it, some don't need it and others just happily put up with it. The truth is anyone can learn in a relatively short amount of time simple procedures to follow, that will keep them in touch with not only the condition of the wood but also the design they are using. Not one of them requires a calculator or a computer. Just skillful work habits.

   I am just throwing it out there as a statement because it would take more than a post to really cover it. But the truth is that we have enough information to properly design and build a bow without predeterming demensions. We can find the right demensions as we build it and we don't have to to any quessing while we build it. It really just depends how much thought and patience you feel like putting into it. I love building bows, about 70% of the bows I build I am just building a run of the mill solid hunting bow. But when I do get into a build I feel heavily armed and ready for combat, almost like a chess game. I study the bows moves and have learned how to counter them, when to retreat, when to advance and when to change or stay wth a strategy etc. Whats nice is not some strange feel that I have gotten through experience, it is all very explainable and quantifiable. 

      I had a lot of e emails from silent lurkers about that excel download. Maybe I can get some of you silent ones to post in this thread, Steve

[ConorO]

Hopefully I'll have such confidence, some day. As I'm building my first true bow... I am asking all of the questions you reference. I have done a lot of reading, and feel like I could just go ahead an make it... but I want to be sure I'm headed in the right direction: somewhere that's tried and true.

[steve b.]

Steve, I'm only myself entering into the intermediate level of bowmaking and have a long way to go for the goals that I've set for myself so I may later regret voicing an opinion at this early stage.  But I really think that I have enough experience at bowmaking, and much more experience at other endeavors in life, to see that what is really needed by the beginners and/or silent lurkers around here is good old fashioned experience.  I think part of the problem is our modern technological age where we are used to getting quick answers and/or where we want to rely on science to get to the truth on so many matters.   When really what is needed is just hands-on-experience.

Everyone is trying to find that "formula" for quick success,  believing that the key lies in the knowledge--the narrowed-down knowledge that perhaps those knowledgeable few have aquired and can save us all the time and anguish by givng us their ten commandments of do's and dont's so we can all quickly catch up.

There's just something about actually working the wood and seeing for one'self what works and what doesn't that is so much more important to mastering the craft than what charts, graphs, or theories can accomplish.  Yet all those things are imporant too.  But they have to be an integral part of the whole learning system. 
So what I always recommend to someone who wants to make bows is:  "Read these books, then get help making your first bow,  then try making one on your own, then reread those books, then make a few bows, then read those books again (and maybe this other book), then make a few more bows, this time make each bow a different size or shape and maybe from this wood and then that wood.  Now read those books again and make 5 more bows.  Etc. etc."
If they are not willing to do those basic things then I don't put any more time into them.  Because its a craft that requires that dedication.

If someone wants to make a bow that is 10% better or faster than the average bow that is commonly made, then great, but I say they need to earn that ability.  Its at that point that the theory will pay off, in how to squeeze out the extra fps, but not unless they really know bending wood---which I think only comes from experience.

I can't help but notice that, after all that has been said and done (written), at least by the TBB authors, that the one advanced technique of the perry reflex is what yields the greatest gains in performance.  And yet those gains, even though reasonably substantial, are only really making much of difference in, say, the penetration of a hunting arrow, when executed perfectly.
So, yes,  that technique is important and worth mentioning, as are all the others, but not without the hugely important foundational technique of getting the most out of the stave in the first place which really comes from "knowing" the wood.

[Badger]

  God post Steve. You are making the same point I am even if you think you are disagreeing. Lots of guys herre have enough experience that they do things automaticaly. As with all trades knowledge is past down, in order to pass something down we have to be able to explain it in such a way that it can be incorporated into the process without any technical know how, just working habits. I learned a lot of stuff by watching other bowyers do things right even if they didn't realize they were doing it. They couldn't really explain it because they never really thought about it. Once you think about these things they become a lot more explainable. I am a high school drop out, I have no educational skills but I have been a mechanic my entire life and learned how important it is to understand something well enough to make it repeatable and explainable.
      As you say in a lot of cases you are only talking a few ft per second, no big deal, But on th eother hand to be able to pick up any kind of wood and execute any kind of design with complete confidence comes from arming yourself with some good common sense information that is and has been in the process of being passed down for the past several years. Our bow building forefathers understould thse principles well I am convinced by some of the bows I have seen built in the 1920's.

[steve b.]

I have to admit that the mass principle sets well with me because it just makes good sense.  But I almost look away from the formulas because I want primitive bowmaking to be more instinctive or intuitive, coming from years of experience, and not off of the shoulders of the work done by others.  In fact, at the point that I'm at now, I AM looking away from the science, instead "just knowing" that the principle applies, and I have to get the best bow out of the stave that can be had.

And I wasn't really disagreeing so much as ranting a bit just because I see this trend with the western way of thinking that what we do has to be measured somehow.  I'd rather it be an art, an art up against the incessant stats and comparisons that our culture makes a priority in every area of life.  I mean, afterall, its primitive.  But that doesn't mean it has to be crude.  I'd just rather see primitive bowmaking as an expression of the individual that is perhaps measured by whether the arrow could be used to take this or that animal, or just hung on the wall, rather than having its worth dependent on a scale and chronograph.

Its not that I don't go down that road myself at times too, its just that the trend toward performance and cosmetics sometimes shadows that underlying artwork that is the bow coming from the stave.

[Badger]

  On another post today a guys asked the question." what is my bow telling me"?  The answer is that the bow is telling you everything you need to know if only you knew how to speak the bows language. So the real question is more like how do I comminicate with the bow. We can easily misunderstand what a bow is telling us if we don't understand the language. Faceted tillering is a good example. I still use facet tillering because it is easy safe and produces good bows. But the truth is that it is not the best way to tiller out a bow and shouldn't be represented as so. When we facet tiller we use a narrow crown on the belly for reducing weight and holding th ebows weight. It is not enough wood to send the bow into deflex and won't take much set because the wider core and back of bow are strong enough to pull it straight. The bow might have a great profile but will have lost some early draw weight. Still a good bow never the less but not as good as it would have been if the belly were flat. Anybody doing no set tillering will pick up on this. I can actually think of quite a few examples.

[mikekeswick]

Great posts there guys.
I agree wholeheartedly that the stave will tell you everything you need to know - it comes down to experience allowing you too understand what you are being told.
A year or two back a lot of things suddenly started to make sense to me, it was like swimming through clear water instead of a murky swamp  but to get to that point took a lot of experimentation, determination and just plain old dogged perseverance. Luckily i'm a right stubborn bugger and won't give up until i'm satisfied.

[echatham]

Steve b. your post was extremely time appropriate for me. thanks.  before i ever built a bow i read tbb vol 1 and some of 2.  to date i have built two wood laminate bows and 4 selfbows, and they are all still shooters, and each one better than the last.  I am now halfway through vol 1 for the second time and this time im reading the whole set, cover to cover before i start tillering the next one.  im getting 10 times as much out of it now that a have a few under my belt.  and i bet the next time i read it i will get still more out of it.  many of the questions i, and many others, have been asking have already been answered or addressed in the first half of the first volume.  i have proggressed alot just leaning on the good advice offered on these forums, but i think rereading these books will help me get to that "intermediate" level.  its funny, but ive noticed that alot of the best advice i have gotten, turns out to be just paraphrased from the tbb.  and i think... how did i miss that?!  read it again.

[Aussie Yeoman]

Badger the OP is a good post.

Before I got into the maths and engineering I made bows from saplings taken from the scrub. I had no idea what species, no idea what good tiller was, or many other facets of bowyery. Yet I still somehow managed to make bows.

Eventually I got a hold of some milled timber and better woods and I was able to learn more, and quicker, because the materials were more reliable.

I do the engineering thing now because I like the challenge. I can and still do make bows the old fashioned way.

But back to your original concept: I run courses on making bows. We make bamboo backed longbows over a weekend. Sometimes participants have read or even tried bowmaking before, sometimes they've not even really thought about it before signing up, and havee literally no woodworking skills and know zero nomenclature.

Nevertheless, by the end of the weekend these small bands of intrepid wood-adventurers have tillered a longbow, and can go on to make more, with a keen eye for what to look for in tiller. Some of them I think forget the nomenclature they learned over the weekend, but still know the concepts well enough to repeat their efforts.

The language of bowmaking is sort of like pictograms. You might not understand the words written below the picture, but you see the image of a man's silhouette falling from a cliff with an exclamation mark, and you just somehow know you shouldn't walk any further down that trail.

[blackhawk]

A little bit of research and thought before each build goes a looooong way....and realize there has been folks that have gone before us that documented a lot of there building..and that information is easily available and accessible to most everyone..one such piece of important info out there is in the traditional bowyers bible volume one. In Tim Bakers bow design and  performance chapter he lists a suggested widths for some common woods...those widths are for a simple flatbow,and will make you a life long lasting meat on the table bow...a great starting point for when first starting out and or when trying a new wood....and that's just one slice of the big pie of public info out there on making bows.....I find most people are just lazy and would rather ask and have someone feed them the info with a silver spoon than research and find out the answers themselves....and then comes the your just gonna have to find out yourself by getting your hands dirty

[WhitefeatherFout]

I don't know if this has been addressed and maybe this is a new can of worms, but I don't recall any readings or posts that address the issue of differences between sapwood and heartwood. I may have missed those and if anyone can direct me to them I'd appreciate it. But, in my mind and my experience sapwood, inmost hardwoods excluding hickory and maple and like woods, would be inferior to heartwood designs.  For example, walnut and cherry.  Does the mass principle apply to bows being made with sapwood and without?  In my mind there would be a difference.  In my experience, sapwood is always the first part of the wood to break down and decay so I see it as being weaker than heartwood.  Is this way of thinking right, wrong?

[dwardo]

I have always wondered if most of us are of a particular mind-set?
 By this I just dont mean an engineering based mind but also problem solvers by nature? I mention this because of something Ed Scott said on one of his bow making videos, he said that he could tell straight away if someone was going to be able to make bows, did they have the right mind for the task? Yes most things can be taught but I have friends who would never be able to make a bow. They simply dont have the patience, the ability to work with something as opposed to against it.

I think we need to make sure this "listening to the wood" does not become a term of fable. It is simply one big compromise in length, width and design. A few of the elms I built recently I would like to have made longer but that would have meant dodging some horrible knots and twist. So I compromised, made them a little wider and was extra careful elsewhere. To be able to compromise you need to be aware of your limits and this can only come from experience or second hand information such as us lot.

Ramblings.

[iowabow]

What is possible for some is not for others! Badger putting solid concepts on paper provides a road map for those looking for a shortcut.  Some may think shortcuts are "bad" and a substitute for hands on experience however for me the wood dust is very toxic and makes me sick for three weeks after a bow has been built.  I really love building bows but I can only make a couple per year. So learning how to build a bow for me is more like an apprenticeship guiding me to a greater understand of the underpinnings of good craft/design that will provide the foundation for me to pursue the Art of bow making.  All of you that help people build bows are the "elders" that teach. We all need to keep in mind that not all people learn the same. Some learn by doing others by watching while other may research to gain as much knowedge before setting out on an adventure. For me this information and help from smart people is so important to my bow making.  Yes the wood talks but my question is what did it tell my "elder". So yes Badger please share your ideas.

[Buckeye Guy]

Steve
This is exactly why I am glad to have you active on here !
You have the ability to see , to hear ,and then to put into language .
You have the components that we need to get this stuff passed on in a much larger scale than my little self just showing how I would do it .
Thank you my friend for taking the time to be here !
Guy

[Badger]

        Thank you Guy, I appreciate that. sometimes I feel bad like I am overcomplicating things. If you were to watch me actually make a bow I do it just like everyone else. I sit down at my shaving horse with a draw knife, I shave until I get the limbs bending, I put the bow into a cawl and use some heat to straighten it up and establish a profile. I then go back to my shaving horse and touch up the bend by floor tillering then I go to full brace height right off the bat. I move over to my easy chair with a braced bow and use my scrapper to to fine tune the braced shape while making short pulls inbetween each scrapping session. I also sometimes use the gizmo if I haver doubts. I have a little secret I do with the gizmo I might want to share also becaue I use more elyptical tillers than full circle tillers. I never leave my chair until the bow is drawing about 24" I am just feeling my way to a finish. At about 24" I might put it on the tiller tree and start adjust for final weight. No science, no calculations, just work.

      The big difference comes in when I am trying to expalin something to a new commer. I can't tell him push kinda hard here, or a little of this and a little of that it doesn't mean anything to someone starting off so the challenge is to try and find away to explain what I am doing and what I am looking for. Most all of the experienced guys do things about the same with little variations and we tend to do them unconciously. My dad used to always tell me that if I didn't know how to expalin something it was because I really didn't understand it. I ran truck repair shops for close to 40 years and used to preach the same thing to my mechanics. I required them to understand the theory behind whatever they were working on. Bow building is a hobby and it is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. When I step out to make a bow it is because I want to lower my stress levels and relax. I also get the little rush we get when I do an especially good job on something, or think I might have found or at least recognised some new aspect that might have been a little elusive in the past.

      The last thing I want to do is take the fun out of something. I see bow building as a practical working art form. My belief is that the more understanding we have the better we are able to apply the artistic touch that each individual chooses as their own niche. Learning the language of the wood is an ongoing process for all of us. Knowing what to look for, where to look and when to look is a big factor in understanding the language. It really boils down to nothing more than sharing our experiences. I am going to submit an article to PA and get it out of my system wether they accept it or not. It might step on a few toes including my own.