Marshall Mini Bow Challenge

[bubby]

I managed to get mine to shape and get one tip bent

[Onebowonder]

Still not sure which if any of the Mini-Bow venues I might get to attend this year.  I've had beau-coup changes in my schedule of late that are making it pretty hard to plan on much of anything.  ...but just-in-case we manage to get to on of the Venues hosting a chapter of the Mini Bow Challenge,  Patrick (lebhuntfish) and I got together the other night to see if we could do anything with this MiniBow idea. 

I had a piece of kinda narrow bamboo and Patrick had a beautiful piece of OLD seasoned Osage with really tight rings, but it was in his refuse pile because it didn't look like it had a bow in it.  We decided to try for a pair of Boo backed Osage minibows.  The Osage was odd shaped, but we figured we could get 25-30 inches of quarter sawn Osage out of the middle of the old stave.  We trimmed the piece out so that the grain stands on edge like so - ||||||||||||| and cut out 3/8ths to half inch thick slats for the bellies of our mini bows.

Then we built a super short caul that has two curved sides to it.  The idea is to glue up both minibows and then press them back to back into the caul on opposing sides.  Patrick heat treated the SNOT out of the belly sides of the Osage slats before we glued them up.

Additionally we had another slat of the Quartersawn osage that it seemed like a shame to waste, and I had a piece of 1/8 inch straight grained Hickory Quartersawn, so we glued it up as well.  We took turns snapping pix of our progress, so I'll have to get Patrick to post some of our 'Making Of' pix to get you a more full story.  Here's a few of the ones I took.

If neither of us can get to Marshall or the Classic, we'll just have to shoot them at MOJAM - which we'll certainly be attending!

OneBow

[Onebowonder]

more pix...

[blackhawk]

Awesome stuff eric n patrick!!!! Nice to see some laminate minis...i might have to try that version as well...these lil things are fun to work on thats for sure.

Mini bows are sweeping the bowyers nation...lol     

[Badly Bent]

I really dig your dually caul guys, thats thinking outside the box.

[lebhuntfish]

It's been a lot of fun working on these little shorties! I've really enjoyed the shop time wit Eric as well. I've been kinda in a bow making slump and now I'm excited about a project again. Here is a few pictures I have of our shop time!

[DC]

If these minis are over 40# could they be used for hunting or is there just not enough draw length to build grunt?

[Badger]

If these minis are over 40# could they be used for hunting or is there just not enough draw length to build grunt?

  At 12" draw they would not store enough energy for hunting but with light enough arrows could get some good cast.

[osage outlaw]

And not very accurate for hunting

[lebhuntfish]

I be hunting wabits! 

Patrick

[Knoll]

And not very accurate for hunting

If we hit ANYWHERE on Marshall's 3d turkey, will call it excellent!

[Badger]

  If I had to bet I would bet no one hits that turkey at 90 yards, I would do 6 shots then move it up 20 yards, 6 more shots then move it up until someone connects.

[stuckinthemud]

If these minis are over 40# could they be used for hunting or is there just not enough draw length to build grunt?

  At 12" draw they would not store enough energy for hunting but with light enough arrows could get some good cast.

Sorry, am a bit confused, I know crossbows have a huge amount more poundage but they operate off a short draw?

[ajooter]

If somebody makes a 24" 100# foot bow that will probably be the case but the last time somebody attempted making a 100# selfbow...which Steve did!  ...I think the server for the site almost melted due to the overloaded discussions.  I do enjoy watching people shoot bows with their feet though.  Watching some of Howard hills exploits makes me want to try it one of these days.

[bubby]

Got another started