This bow is quite a conversation piece:It's been fairly cold here lately so there's little time for building. Northern Canadian winters make it tough for building bows outdoors. Anyways, here are some pics of one I managed to finish just in time to go under a friend's tree on Tuesday.
Cotton backed hickory with canary bellies lashed with jute to purpleheart recurves and riser.
66" o/a 64 1/2" ntn unbraced, braced to 61/2" and drawn to 26" 55#@26
It's got very smooth action with very minimal vibe. Nice draw with no stack, and plenty quick for a target bow. The bow-proper is finish tillered at 58" and then bobbed to 56" before the statics go on, and I tiller it as such until I can get the desired weight at a 24" draw. That's usually close enough that I don't lose any weight as I stretch the draw and deal with any twist that might occur after the statics are put on. It's taken me a while to work out the geometries to where everything works well together. The geometries and the tillering process set an easy path for the wood to do its thing. I don't ever expect any help from luck.
Handshock has never really a problem with any of the rigid recurves I've built so far. The first couple had some but I found that the angle of the recurves can be adjusted to smooth it out. Also, the deflex smooths out the action a bit. It's a bit of a balancing act between those two aspects and the usual belly-to-back ratios, tapers, and limb length. Even though the bow is 66" o/a, there's only 18" of working limb. One of the rigid recurves I built last fall has well over 1000 shots and going strong. I shoot it on a regular basis as ongoing research. A friend has been shooting one I made this spring with at least as many shots through it.
I usually don't bind the limbs at the root. I just put that on to cover the cotton back in this case. The only other times I've done it was to hold down bolsters I add to the limbs to stiffen them up a bit after the bow is shot in. I put the smaller bindings on this one to move the 'center of percussion' up the limbs a bit.
This bow generated a lot of forum activity. Here's a couple of typical reactions:"That is a beauty. A lot of good woodworking on that one. How is the performance? I never shot a bow like that" -WIBOWYER
"Dude, those tips are off the charts. Way to go man. I love the gull wing look with talons .Makes a man think about possibilities. I would be interested in the performance numbers and how too info. Danny" -Sidewinder
"That is an awesome bow. The tiller looks great and the workmanship is excellent. Jawge" -George Tsoukalas
"A very unusual and interesting bow! definately eye candy. thanks for sharing! " -tpoof
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