Very cool , really interested to know how a horn lamination compares to a wood lamination...faster?
R.D.
Thanks ruddy. Yes they are faster. Not by a terrible amount but they are faster. The best combo is sinew wood and horn. My fastest composite bow shot 203 fps at 9gpp. I’ve had some self bows close to this but more in mid 190 fps. The biggest benefit is longer power stroke compared to all wood bows. In essence more power/energy. It worked for the ottoman, Turkish, Mongolian and asiatic bow builders to name a few for thousands of years. It’s kind of a journey of mine to blend the benefits of these composite horn bows with more modern long bow style and flat bows and recurves even. The key is to not just add a ton of mass by adding horn to a wood bow backed with sinew. Too much is a tipping point in mass and then becomes a slug. The sinew is a huge learning curve too that needs just the right balance of sinew to glue as too much glue can slow down a bow with added mass. The combo of about 1/3 wood core 1/3 sinew 1/3 horn seems to work well as a basic ratio. I’ve played around with varying ratios and some wood cores are better than others. Osage is great bow wood for self bows and backed bows even but would not use it for a horn bow composite. Hard white woods are better for this imo. The fastest bow I built was a heat treated hickory about 40-50% overall thickness with 25% horn and 25% sinew. Sorry, Long winded answer but you get the gist. Cheers.