hickory modified molle bow

[superdav95]

Hello all I'm new to Primitive Archer!  Ive started making bows as a hobby since Jan this year.  Im loving it!  Here is one of the latest bows I've made recently that I call the modified Mollegabet lightning bow.  It is a new design for me based off of the many various designs I've researched online and tried to incorporate in my build.  It is 66 1/2" ntn and pulls 50lbs at 28".  It has undergone a heat treating process on the belly which has increased the compression somewhat.  Its speed is quite good at 170fps at 9 gpp.  The 450 grain arrows I shot with this bow seemed to work very well and suited for the bow for good flight.  I used buffalo horn arrow shelf and tip overlays.  the arrow pass is a small piece of beaver tail that I tanned up earlier this year.  I thought it would be neat to use my conestoga works liktenburg machine to put a lightning burn pattern on the handle and little into the riser.  There was a knot hole in this piece too that I decided to place at the centre of the handle and filled it with red dyed resin.  The bow has little to no hand shock and only is present when I shoot the lighter arrows.  shooting the 450 grain arrows there is virtually none.  I was getting higher speeds with the lighter arrows but noise and vibration became more noticeable.  I stained the back of the bow with a dark gel stain and faded at the handle and at the tips followed by several coats of tru oil.  The natural ripple effect on the back of the bow with the gel stain was a cool look I thought.  Tillering these bows was a learning curve for sure.  I found that the molle style bows takes a little more care for tillering and getting it perfect.  This particular lightning bow is the 12th one of this design I've made and can say that Ive just now got the hang of getting good tillering of these molles bows!  its been a long learning curve.  Ill post some pics of it and let me know what you think! 

[Don W]

Picture are not attached correctly. Would love to see some pictures.

[Stickhead]

Picture are not attached correctly. Would love to see some pictures.

Fixed

[Don W]

I like it. Excellent work!

[burchett.donald]

    Looks well balanced, excellent work..."White Lightning"
                                                                                        Don

[boomhowzer]

Welcome to the Primitive Archer forum, superdav! I'm new here too. Everyone is really nice, especially if you're making sweet bows like that one. I'm really impressed and surprised at how abrupt the transition between the flat part of the bow and the thicker tip section is. Amazing. Do you have any pictures of the bow's unstrung profile? (i.e. the side view of the bow without the string). Also, what kind of wood is it?

[Pat B]

 beautiful tiller on a very nice bow. I think you've figured it all out.      

[BowEd]

Looking good.

[simson]

May i suggest to take your pics next time more orthogonally to the bow, the angle makes it difficult to discuss. Also an unbraced pic is helpful.

All in all it looks very good, nicely stained.

[RyanY]

Beautiful shape to that one. There was a bowyer years ago who made a lot of these recurved mollies.

[SLIMBOB]

Nice work sir. Not the easiest benign to get right, and it looks like you did.

[gifford]

Very well done, excellent lines.

[superdav95]

Wow thanks for all the encouragement and kind remarks!  What a great community. Very nice welcome indeed.  Just to answer a few questions…. The wood I used is shag bark hickory that I harvested earlier this past spring when the bark come clean off.   I’ll post some more pics here of the unbraced bow some more close ups too.  As far as the transitions on the tips I worked this stave fairly green about a couple months after I cut it down.  Once I got it roughly shaped out I left the tips thicker to account for the transitions.  This helped a lot for me to get the roughed out bow clamped down to my form with induced recurve tips and slight reflex in limbs.  I let this sit in the sun for a week or so depending on weather to get it to below 10% moisture.  This help keep checking to minimum.  I found working green hickory works really week for me.  Once I get the stave (usually do 3-4 at a time) at 10% I bake them over hot coals about 18”-24” over the pit belly side down.  This yields a permanent take on of shale to the form it’s called to.  Hickory is really good for heat I found.  I’ve tried with and without fire hardening and always get thinner profiles and less mass for equal draw weights and faster speeds.  Unbelievable actually what little heat does.  I’ve made some with hornbeam this same way with mixed results.  The ones that survive the heat and tiller are equally as fast.  Sorry about the side profile of drawn bow.  I didn’t even think of that.  I’ll use a better backdrop then my backyard trees 🙂.  I had Tom help to get the photos posted as the ones I posted didn’t seem to take.  Thanks Tom!  I’ll post a few more here and see if I can figure out what I did wrong.   Thanks again everyone!

[superdav95]

Looks like the second set of pics posted ok this time.  Please don’t judge me on my messy shot in last pic. It shows the darkness on the bake I got after the fire hardening. 

Dave

Here are few few more full sized pics…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/193575471@N05/shares/9GK7cB

https://www.flickr.com/photos/193575471@N05/shares/37G999

Here’s a quick video clip of bow being shot

https://flic.kr/p/2mffGP6

[PaSteve]

Welcome to Primitive Archer. Very nice work. It appears you have the fire-hardening process pretty well figured out.