bow building

[Grizz]

yesterday I layed out a pyramid type flat bow onto a red oak board that is 3/4" x 2-1/2" and I cut it 71" long.

I used this drawing as a guide, but my dimensions are longer and wider.



here is the blank

pyra-1.JPG

and here is the riser being gorilla'd to the blank

pyra-2.JPG

I like the way the grain looks on the ends, but am forewarned that it's WRONG, ALL WRONG.

I am experimenting a'la corps of discovery to ascertain the facts of the matter.

there will be a lot of wood removing and I can still get it to the dimensions on the drawing.

as it is it has about 3/8" bend to it which I guess would give a 400# draw at 3" and a busted piece of wood.

how in the world die Otzie do it without the internet, u2ube university, and a stanley plane and drawknife?

as always, experts and kibitzers encouraged and welcome

[Camel73]

Kibitzer here, ha. Oh, this is very interesting... Way to go Grizz.

I was at yo-yo depot just today lookin at red oak boards, all paranoid about the grain lol (it'll be my first). I imagine 'ol whats-his-name snapped a few along the way.

With my luck lately i'll probably have to whittle mine down with my knife.

Looks great so far, looking forward to more pics

[Grizz]

thanks for the reply. yeah, I expect to try making several, I learn with my hands, so I might get the hang of it. it's very interesting to read about it and an internet search brings up millions of articles and pictures.

I imagine in cultures that depended on bows, say for the last fifty thousand years or so, when kids grew up making bows and shooting bugs with them, that their common knowledge was our expert knowledge.

in one of the articles there is good info on finding red oak boards that make good bows. I'll post back to this thread when I get some links.

[mark08]

Hey grizz,
a few years ago i had a friend who made bows for a living on the reservation. I will tell you what i know of how he did it. He dryed the wood for several years after having split it while green. The splitting assured the grain was straight. From this, he cut down the blank with a drawing knife. The center "handle" would be left fat or sometimes he would add"glue" wood on to make handle. Cut notches for string. Not all bows would be strong enough or they would even break. These made good fire wood. To smooth the bow he used broken glass as a scraper. I was surprised that he could make several in a day. Of course the wood was dry and split long before. Basely he made them, then determined the quality and strength. Trail and error. He usely started with a split about 6-7 feet long and shorten them to get the pull he wanted. About one in a hundred would be competition quality....These he spent more time with doing what i don't know So it seems to me it is not an exact science. Don't give up. keep a trying. Hope this helps. keep us posted

[mark08]

I forgot, he used hickory and elm

[Grizz]

Thanks Mark

thanks so much. I have my eyes open for suitable wood to split and dry, and plan to do it the 'old way' some day. I like the info that the boyer just kept going to investigate the possibilities of each new stave.

much appreciated viewpoint

[minish]

A backing of some sort may take care of the growth ring problem. Go very slow and careful during the tillering process, it is what determines if you end up with a bow or not. Good luck! Also, if (when) You build a split wood bow, be aware that it is a much different process.

[JerryB]

Grizz, when you do get some bow wood to split, after you split it paint both ends with a heavy paint or some thing to seal the ends to prevent long splits that will ruin your bolt.

[Bill in Oregon]

Grizz, my first shootable bow was a board bow made from a piece of white oak carefully selected to avoid grain runout and backed with silk in Titebond III. I probably put 250 arrows through it when it let go at full draw without any warning whatsoever. It was a sunny summer day and I had no shirt on, and got cut on the left forearm and just below the rib cage. Nothing serious, but quite a surprise! I think it makes sense to consider some kind of backing on a board bow, although many such bows have given wonderful service without backing.
Wishing you the best of luck with yours.

[donw]

you say your dimensions are longer and wider.

longer equals less poundage.

spike one inch usually nets 10# gain

are you going to back the handle? might be a good idea. pyramid/board bows can be weak at the handle/limb junctions. if you do back it, do it before tillering otherwise the handle may pop off when drawing.

[Grizz]

thanks so much you'all for very good info, tips, and advice.

I have thought I would back this bow and am reading various strategies.

I have some seasoned bamboo but no idea how I would apply it. I was thinking, (uhoh), about cutting the sections from the joints and soaking the material to make it plyable, If it can be made plyable. Then glueing it on in strips with overlapping joints. Is this feasible, or just completely goofy? (leaning toward goofy)

I see people using tightbond for the backing. Is this better than epoxy resin? If the backing were hickory, would TB3 still be the glue of choice?

Thanks so much for the input. It's a fun project, a good break from the other ones, and nice to work wood with simple tools.

[Grizz]

Don,

I am actually wanting to lower the draw weight. 30# would be OK for getting some practice shooting a hay bale in the yard. I need low intensity while I'm working myself into shape for shooting.

When you say back the handle, is this to say that the backing doesn't extend onto the limbs?

Also, does an increase in width increase the draw weight for a given thickness? It's very easy to pare down the width as I develop the shape.

Thanks

[JerryB]

Grizz, I got my bow making book out and looked at the chapter on backing. It looks like sinew back would be a pretty good choice for backing a bow. probably plenty on it on the web.

[Grizz]

Thanks Jerry

I'll check that out.

[Camel73]

Are you not going with the hickory backing?

[Grizz]

Are you not going with the hickory backing?

just don't know yet.

1st I'll carve on it some and see how it is coming along. plan to go slow so I don't take off too much. then if it feels like, yeah, it's not the one robin hood would want I will back with something.

I'm kind of leaning toward the silk tie bedded in TB3, or 2 even. 'cause it's simple easy quick and available. hickory, not so much. also, if I use hickory as in the drawings, would I have to skin down the oak limb slimmer to make up for the added thickness, 1/8th or so, of the hickory??

thanks

[1894cfan]

Was just watching Lock n' Load and they mentioned Long Bows, said it used half heartwood and half sap wood, made of Yew. I remember reading 'Ishi, Last of his tribe', and in they mentioned he used sinyew for backing (that's already been mentioned here). HTH

[jmiller]

Urac wood glue is probably the best glue for making bows. It requires the bonded parts to be clamped together and placed in a hot box for 24 hours (an insulated box with a 200w bulb inside. For adding something to the wood, look at Gordan Glass. It comes in tapered sheets for bow making. At least it used to, that's what we used for many years. I haven't made one for many years, but to date not one of our bows has broken or delaminated.

[Camel73]

I wish I could answer your questions.
I've been doin a lot of reading though! ha
At this point I'm still only kibitzer/grasshopper. I only just tonight learned about plain, rift and quartersawn lumber!

Ok, I'll bite anyway..
It looks like the hickory backing is a requirement to attain their poundage numbers.
1/8" hickory thickness is included in their dimension numbers as the dark line.
I'm thinking (uh-oh [me too]) that this specified backing is the clincher as far as not turning it into a 2 piece, unexpectedly.

Lookin at the plans now... pretty sure that their poundage numbers relate specifically with a hickory backing. ... but your numbers might make up for it?? --For quartersawn red oak (6-8% humidity) 1.5" at the fades will give 30# at a 68" length.

Is your bow still 3/4" thick, 71" long and 2.5" at the fades?

[Grizz]

Is your bow still 3/4" thick, 71" long and 2.5" at the fades?

right now it is, but there is probably half of that weight coming off. from reading the internet, the backing doesn't seem to do much for draw weight. what it does, I think, is handle the huge tension forces on the back and help keep it from breaking, and helps them last longer.

the width at the fades promotes higher draw weights, but there are paddle bows that are wider than that and very skinny in thickness and are good shooters.

my tentative plan is to start thinning the fades until I can get some movement there, then thin toward the tips. they finish up around 3/8ths, so half the thickness gone.

right now, with no thinning started, there is one limb already curved and the other is dead straight. and the curved one is bendier, so for now it's the upper limb.

I can reduce draw weight by narrowing the fades, and I've seen a chart that says 1-1/2 inches for the 25# area. Which is why I have long limbs for now.

as far as backing, I think I like the silk idea . . . and if that's not adequate, I have lots of f'glass cloth, polypropelene cloth, and very good flexible epoxy resin that I trust and know how to use. I could deflex the bow with that setup, if that's the correct use of the term. I'm thinking I could make the bow curve the wrong way unstrung to offset some string following. if that's the correct use of the term.

thanks for chipping in men. I know this isn't a bowbuilder website, but I don't want to join any forums, I'm comfortable on this one, and trust the guys that are here. and besides, I'll be tossing 325gr projectiles at something like 150fps, and the squirrel arrow will have a .380 cartridge for the blunt. So there is a tie-in of sorts. And besides, when I get the string release built that Nick at backyardboyer designed, I will have a lever involved in the discharge of the projectiles.

I don't know, I may have put a little too much Tillamook Mudslide in the expresso today, but hey, why not, eh?

if I've gotten out on the wrong limb, someone will hopefully enlighten me before I have to turn it into BBQ charcoal.

[JerryB]

Grizz, as I said before I really think traditional archery and leverguns go together.

[Grizz]

Grizz, as I said before I really think traditional archery and leverguns go together.

I know, thanks for that. Just seems right to me.

But, I wonder, did any of the Mountain Men and trappers and beaver chasers, beaver pelt chasers, etc., carry and use bows, in addition to their other means of making meat and stopping attacks? seems like, if I were hungry and I was in the middle of someone else's territory, an arrow would draw a lot less curious attention from local war parties, than the whiz-bang lever express attention getters.

listening to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pXzge4 ... A773BA7199