Finally found some time and energy to finish this bow. It was basically finished in May last year, and just needed a leather handle. That was applied a week ago, so now was the time to make some good pictures. The weather finally cooperated as well, so here's what I came up with.
The bow started with a bamboo pole that had some drying cracks. A few bamboo slats were very narrow and were thus only suitable for narrow bows. The ipé was a leftover I could get for free (don't we all love free wood?). The ipé was also really narrow and thin, but the grain was wonderfully straight. The ipé was only 10 mm thick (a little over 3/8" for all you guys on the other side of the water). My experiences with bamboo backed ipé (BBI) bows have learned me that it really doesn't take a lot of material to make a bow. So I decided against a tri-lam and went with only bamboo and ipé without a third core lam. The materials were cheap, so it was somewhat of an experiment to see what this little material would bring me. I would have been happy with anything over 30#. I started with a long bow, so I could always shorten it and gain a few pounds. Due to the limited thickness, a 17" maple powerlam was added in the handle. This gave the handle sufficient thickness to shift some of the bend away from the handle, into the midlimbs. A mild reflex/deflex design was chosen, simply because I like this profile and it provides a sweet and fast shooter. The bow has about 2" of reflex and 1" of deflex. Tillering was not complicated and I tried to maintain as much draw weight as possible. It ended up being 72" nock to nock, since the bow was finished at 35 pounds at 28". This was enough for me, so I decided not to shorten it. The length is a bit longer than strictly necessary, but I feel this bit of extra length provides a lot of safety. I would feel comfortable selling this bow, knowing that a bit of overdrawing or abuse would not kill it. Since this was to become a slender bow, I left the tips pretty basic, with just a tip overlay of African Blackwood (a rosewood species). A basic arrow rest was created with some thick leather and superglue, all hidden under a leather handle wrap.
Stats:Bamboo backed ipé - African blackwood tip overlays
Maple powerlam in the handle
Exactly 1" wide at the handle tapering to 3/8" nocks.
11/16" thick at the handle (overall thickness)
35#@28"
72" nock to nock
And here are the pictures!
Unbraced side profile.
Front profile.
Braced side profile.
Detail of the leather handle and powerlam.
The ipé had a really nice black streak in the wood, that is still clearly visible.
African blackwood tip overlay. I need to use a string with a smaller loop, so it rests in the groove more neatly.
I'm not sure if I should be happy that a golden dung fly landed on my bow... but since it inspected my bow real closely, I guess it approved her!
And of course the money shot!
Thanks for looking!
Jorik
