Warbow-along

[grantmac]

Alright folks I haven't done a build-along before and I have only made one other warbow before so this could be very interesting. It's not going to be a terribly heavy by warbow standards but it is something new for me. I glued it up tonight and I haven't yet taken any pictures so I'll start with the specs and the fancy stuff will come tomorrow night.
78" overall (possibly going to pike depending)
Shooting for 70#@28 and 85#@31, if those numbers sound way off please let me know.
Easter Red Cedar backed with Hardmaple. The ERC is 3/4" and the Maple 1/4".
Glued-up with just a touch of reflex using inner tubes and the local equivilent of Urac 185.
Tomorrow night will be roughing it out, taking pictures and starting to floor-tiller.
     Cheers,
            Grant

[Bowbound]

I am looking forward to this. I hope it turns out good. What tiller are you going for. Compass or epileptical?

[grantmac]

I'm going to try for as close to compass as possible. Update tomorrow.

[grantmac]

Here is the update.
Here is the bow wrapped with innertubes. The piece of ERC had a bit of reflex so I decided to help it along by supporting it only in the middle and putting the backing down:




Here I am using some spring clamps and a bit of string to lay-out the centerline. I only mark it at important places like the tips and grip, this piece came out of the glue nice and straight so no adjustments are really needed:


Appearently most warbows have a very gentle side taper until the last 14" or so. So I'm just going to lay out the strong taper and cut that with my bandsaw, the gentle tapers will be done by eye with the surform and spokeshave as I floor tiller. I find tapers are best done with the naked-eye as opposed to just bringing it down to a line:



Tips are cut to 1/2" and will be brought down as skinny as possbile once the tillering is underway:


Well half of it is starting to look a lot like a bow:


Next installment will be floor tillering and starting with the long string.
     Cheers,
           Grant

[Bowbound]

Its going great so far. Do you know if cherry will make a self bow war bow. I know it is strong in tension but weak in compression so i think if i leave it war bow length 75+" then it will be fine. What do you think?

Josh

[grantmac]

I'm not sure about cherry as I've never used it. In general a warbow likes to have compression strong wood.
I think I'll have the roughing out and a good start on floor-tillering by tomorrow night.
      Cheers,
              Grant

[grantmac]

Got it roughed out and floor-tillered (as much as you can with a bow this weight). I am currently debating on nocks for it. I think I'm going to go with just a sharply tapered end, small side-nock and use a sliding loop with a timber hitch for the bottom. Could make stringing interesting but we'll see.
Pictures later today.
    Cheers,
            Grant

[grantmac]

Update with pics:
For one thing it looks like the ERC is going to be just too soft for self-nocks so I'm waiting for the glue to dry on some Ipe back-nocks. Not terribly authentic but it will have to suffice. Also I managed to get a string on it at very low brace but getting it off of the side-nocks (was a running loop) was damn near impossible and it cut a small sliver of wood off the belly.
Here are the tips as they were just before I cut the small side-nocks:


This give you an idea of what belly profile I'm shooting for. It's a very rounded rectangle as some of the MR bows appear to be with rounded tips.

If anyone knows how far this is from historical accuracy I'd be pleased to make an adjustment at this stage in the game.

Here we are pulling about 6-7" on the tree. Estimating my weight to be around 60-70lbs so I have plenty of wood to make weight, now I need a heavier scale:


As always tillering input is greatly appriciate and I think I'll have it braced by tomorrow.
      Cheers,
              Grant

[The Burnt Hill Archer]

this is going to be interesting. ive been wanting to try a heavy bow for a while now, maybe this'll help push me...

Phil

[radius]

grant, how do you like the erc so far?  and where did you get it?  windsor plywood?  I see they still have some ipe boards out there...didn't ask the price, i was buying something else and it was closing time...do you remember the price of ipe per board foot?  thanks

[grantmac]

ERC is great stuff. Very tiller sensitive though, you really don't want to do a first brace unless your 100% sure you don't have anything like a hinge. Wants to be a bit longer too which isn't a problem due to the light weight. I found it at Westwind, they have a bunch but it's very hard to find it clear. Can't go wrong for $3.50/BF though. I'm thinking about getting some selected lumber straight from the source in the US though.

As for that Ipe, it was $12/BF when I bought it. Good thing it doesn't take much to build a bow out of it. Going to try a Boo/Fir/Ipe tri-lam one of these days.
     Cheers,
            Grant

[grantmac]

Well it isn't tomorrow but I do finally have it braced to 5.5" and I'm fairly happy with the braced profile.
Top limb left:

Top limb right:

Drawn about 15" top limb left:

Drawn about 15" top limb right:


Tillering help is greatly appriciated. I think I need to get the top limb working closer to the tip for now. I also need to come-up with a decent 100-150lb scale as this ha already broken my cheap 50lb one.
       Cheers,
               Grant

[El Destructo]

I beleive that the Right limb is stiffer than the Left one....and both need to get more wood bending at midlimb outward towards the Tips

[grantmac]

Yeah the upper (white) limb needs to bend more out near the tip and I think the bottom one could stay pretty close to where it is. I'm going to pick-up a better scale today and that will let me know if I'm near my weight. The nice thing about tillering back to 31" is that it's easy to pick-up some more pounds at the end of the draw.
     Cheers,
           Grant

[bow kid44]

nice bow