Here is another bow that I just finished as a test to see if I could do it.
I'll call it an 'Asian Bow with siyah and string bridges'. I've been reading about horse bows (mongolian, hungarian, korean) and wondered if I could make something like that. Not having the horn, hide glue OR the experience, I decided to try to make something but with available resources and my current state of knowledge ( limited ).
I had some bamboo around that I could use for the back and thought that if I could get some vertical bamboo I would use that for the belly.
I stopped at my local flooring store and lo and behold they had six foot vertical bamboo flooring. I talked the manager into selling me two planks for $10 and had a friend rip them in half and then into 1 1/4 strips (so I got 8 vertical bamboo strips for $10 - the kind of deal I like).
I was cleaning the garage that week and came across an old magazine rack (falling apart) and was going to throw it out - wait - the legs were birch and just the right size for the siyahs. SO now I'm in business.
OK, still didn't have any hide glue and didn't want to spend a day or two boiling up hides and stuff and too poor to just order it online. BUT, I've been reading about what hide glue really is. I then just went out and bought some Knoxx Gelatin (hide glue you can eat )
Construction:
I sanded down the bamboo back and vertical belly strip to about. 3/16" or a little more in thickness and shaped them to be about 11/2" wide at the handle and 3/4" wide at the ends. They were four feet long.
Glue Up: I put two packets of gelatin in a plastic cup and added the same amount of water and let the gelatin absorb the water. I added two tablespoons more water and heated the cup in the microwave being careful not to let it boil. I took two spoonfuls of this and diluted it by half again, heated it again and brushed it on both the backing and belly bamboo and let it cool. I did this a couple of times because everyone talking about using hide glue seem to do this for a glue up.
Finally I heated the really thick stuff again and brushed it on and clamped the two cores together and into a form for some deflex and a little reflex at the ends.
I waited... but not long enough!!! I tried to bend the blank about 4 days after the glue-up and it de-lamanated on me. OK, so I just used a heat gun to soften the glue again, applied another layer of the glue and re-clamped. Waited longer this time..(about 10 days)...... It worked!!!
BTW: I just store the glue in fridge in a covered plastic container. When I need it again, I can just cut out a chunk of gelatin and melt it in a plastic cup and use it.
So now I have the bow blank and am ready to put on the siyahs and tiller it.
This bow was going to be a stronger that I thought. I had to narrow down the limbs to get it to bend and then take some off of the belly. Final dimensions are 1 3/8" at the handle and 11/16 or a little less at the ends.
Siyahs: I cut out a slot to put the end of the bow blank into and shaped them (with a belt sander) to be narrow and as light as possible.
I glued them on with some 10 min epoxy (I know, I should have used the hide glue but didn't want to wait a week - next time). I drilled holes for the string and used files to smooth them out.
The string bridges are walnut that I had around that I shaped on the end of my belt sander and then cut in half so I had two of them. I glued them on just behind where the siyahs meet the core and then wrapped the siyahs with artificial sinew to reinforce them.
Shooting it: Ok, I couldn't hit the broad side of my target the first couple times. Takes some getting used to.
I still have not put it on a scale so I don't know what it draws. I'll do that soon. Found my scale 45 lbs at 26"
Hope you enjoyed this.
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