KenH style asian bow- FULL DRAW ADDED

[aznboi3644]

If you have a Menards near you...they have 10 times the selection of straight grained oak and red oak compared to lowes or HD

[aero86]

nope, not one within 200 miles!  must be a nawthern thing.  i might have to get you to help me out finding some good red oak slats.  might help my chances out on this endevour

[walkabout]

ive built bows from less than desireable red oak, as long as you have a backing you should be ok.

[KenH]

Aero:

Ya gotta stop with the short cuts, the rushing and

[color=blue...in an attempt to raise the draw weight a bit,ive broken it of course!...i backed the bow with hemp twine....didn't raise the draw weight.[/color]

This appears regularly in the discussions here.  Only wood or sinew backings will increase the draw weight. 

also, i got tired of trying to find a good piece of bamboo

There's that "take your time" thing again, that we keep mentioning to you....

so i split a bunch of the small shafting i had, ground it down by hand, heat treated it a bit, and glued it to the back of my bow.  two things..  since i dont have a belt sander, i used a dremel, causing un-even glue lines and some seperating.  and two, i put this on the belly of this bow, hence the heat treating of it.  well, i knew i was dooming myself to failure with this one because at my handle, i didnt go up the fades, it cause a crack on the back of the bow.  its done.  buuutttt, i did learn a good way to attach the stuff to the belly, just cant do it all in one sitting.  also, i need to make up a jig of some sort, to make them uniform in width.  i know itll probably cause limb twist because the might not be uniform in thickness.  i got the idea from it basically bundle bows and taking a split piece of shaft, and seeing how far it would bend..

A Dremel to try and smooth something more than 1/4" wide with?  Go buy a sanding block.  Or a palm sander.  Or a belt sander!!!  Somehow I suspect using bamboo splinters is going to be more work, more time and more cost than just buying the Right Stuff to begin with.

question..  im planning to do this again.  can i find a piece of red oak, that has just decent grain?  i plan on putting the bamboo on the back of the bow this time..

Yes you can use "just OK" red Oak if you back it.  Why not spend a couple dollar more and buy a couple decent pieces of wood and bamboo; or even a horse bow kit from one of the recognized dealers??

[aero86]

i should have said, finding one at a decent price.  im practicing with this to make decent parts, my skills in making the parts that i need, and working on the patience i need to make a proper one before i get good quality parts and break it.

[walkabout]

using bamboo would be ok if you were doing something a little diferent, like making the limbs R/D and then adding simple siyahs like some of the asian horsebows use, the ones that are more like pin nocks. with the bamboo though you would have to actually tiller the lams together before glue up to make sure the bamboo isnt too thick, causing all the core material to be tillered away. im betting finding a hickory backing strip would be possible for the short length you need, thats probably what i would use, and at the same time a backing strip would add a little weight if your siyahs are short.