Rimankyu - my Mini Adventure.

[Tommytinker]

Ever since I read the traditional bowyers bibles and saw an example of a Japanese 'Riman kyu' or 'kago hankyu', I have been desperate to attempted one of these little bows and its counterpart arrows and holster.

After doing some research I found relatively little information about these miniature weapons, but I decided to give it a try anyway.
Link to a picture of an original on that came up on a Google search:

https://s-media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/83/29/98/832998f7fb5205b843b6cee1b44b9249.jpg

There were two main hurdles form me; the first being the unavailability of baleen, so I opted for sinew backed hickory with a thin horn belly lam. The second hurdle being my inexperience in bowery in general - having only completed a handful of functioning bows - and the fact that I had never made a truly successful horn and sinew bow and so embarking on a project to make one measuring just 14" nock to nock was ambitious. 

I'm a fair way into this project and in case anyone is interested I will document my miniature adventure so far below, thoughts, ideas, questions and constructive criticism all welcome!

Tommy

[Tommytinker]

The belly laminations are cow horn, the core is hickory and the riser is ipe. I also used antler in the centre for the horn to butt against and also for the

I shaped the ipe riser got the horn and hickory to approximate size, decreased and roughed up the mating surfaces and glued it all together With Araldite epoxy, reflexing out of the handle and deflexing mid limb.

[Tommytinker]

This is how she looked after taking her out of the form 14 hours later With some sanding, shaping and the addition of the antler centre strip.

[tattoo dave]

Looks like a fun project. Never heard of these bows. Looking forward to seeing it finished. Thanks for sharing.

Tattoo Dave

[mullet]

These bows were basically the Japanese version of Carriage bows.

[PatM]

A carriage bow is generally thought of as a take-down is it not?
 

[mullet]

Pat;
I'm not real sure. The pictures I saw in a book didn't show a lot detail. I have a book called Yudo bows that show some of the Japanese ones, But James Parker has it.

[lebhuntfish]

Very cool, can't wait to see the rest of your progress.

I made a little Osage bow one day just to see if I could. It was 12 inches long and pulled a whopping 4lbs and it shot bamboo skewers like darts. Really fun to play with. A word to the wise though, use progressively smaller grits of sandpaper for tillering. It don't take much to get it to bend a "LOT". Good luck, Patrick

[mikekeswick]

Ah you should have added more reflex not deflex midlimb! It will stack way sooner now especially with the reflexed handle. Reflexed handles just force the bow to bend further from the handle increasing stack and lowering energy storage.
Have a look at this one.

[mikekeswick]

http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/39485#.VDdn24FdWSo

[mikekeswick]

I always meant to make another of these bows as it was just too cool. As mentioned in that thread you don't have get some funny looks when you pull out a bow like this!!

[Tommytinker]

Thanks for all the replys so far.

I'll post the next instalment shortly.

Mikekeswick - as tempting as it is to pile on the reflex, I have put the mid limb deflex in for three reasons;
1. As you'll see in my next posts I've added siyahs to the tips, I felt too much reflex would put such a little bow under too much stress.
2. These bows were traditionally left braced for very long periods of time, and again I wouldn't want to put that much stress on the bow
3. It really like the five bend, 'gullwing' profile!

More progress updates and photos to follow!

[PatM]

Eddie, I meant that a carriage bow is a bow for carrying by carriage in broken down form, not using in it as some have suggested.
 The small Japanese bow was meant to be used like a pistol for self defense from some sort of vehicle. Likely while being carried in a litter.
 Two entirely different meanings for carriage.

[blackhawk]

Mikekeswick - as tempting as it is to pile on the reflex, I have put the mid limb deflex in for three reasons;
1. As you'll see in my next posts I've added siyahs to the tips, I felt too much reflex would put such a little bow under too much stress.
2. These bows were traditionally left braced for very long periods of time, and again I wouldn't want to put that much stress on the bow
3. It really like the five bend, 'gullwing' profile

But by putting reflex in the handle and deflex in the limbs like that you are doing the opposite of what your wanting it to be...I agree with mike...the best design for what your wanting from it wood be to have deflex in the handle..then increasing reflex towards the tips of your working limbs...then short sharp recurves/siyahs...it'll give you the smoothest pulling,lowest stressed(especially since you want it to be braced for long periods of time),furthest draw per length of bow,and will spit an arrow faster all else equally...like I said you pretty much did the opposite of what ya intended to do....but its sinew n horn n will still stretch like rubber

The deflex limbs of a gullwing isn't "induced" during glue up...its from set

[Tommytinker]

I've then cut some more hickory and ipe for the siyahs and split an antler tine for underplays to reinforce the tips and serve as string bridges.