Hi guy's
Thanks for the welcome and your comments. Firstly let me say I am very much an amateur bowyer and still working out what works in my bows and what doesn't. I am a carpenter tho, so I can say, I have a good feel for different timbers and how to work them.
In terms of design, this bow and an osage one I made before it, are a culmination of 2 years of making bows out of different timbers, both northern and southern hemisphere species, with mostly un performing or sometimes catastrophic results!
Finally I can say with this bow and the osage bow before it, I am very happy with the result. I back all my flatbows with Hickory, its relatively easy to get here and is fantastic to work with, it also works!
I am yet to make a successful self bow that has lasted more than 500-600 arrows. These were American white ash which we use here alot in furniture making. I tried a yew bow a few weeks ago, but it broke in the tillering process and I managed to salvage this from the remnants. Thank goodness.
As you can see in the unstrung photo their is quite alot of reflex glued into this bow, and maybe I should of started it closer to the limb tips, so as a consequence, the inner and mid limbs are doing the bulk of the work. There seems to be no ill effects of this, thus far, the bow however, comes around quite smooth. The profile is quite square on the limbs. Just something I am toying with after reading a few post's on various sites. Trying to get some speed into my bows and i'm getting there!!!The bow picks up the draw weight early and is smooth to draw, it packs quite a punch for 45lb. The yew is fantastic to work with. I just ordered some more. Thanks Carson!!!!!
When I tiller a bow like this, I cut and plane a nice taper from fades to tips, then start to tiller the limbs from the fades out and hardly end up touching the limb tips at all. I have done my last few bows like this and as a result, they have kept there shape with no or very little set, draw and shoot smooth and are the quickest bows I've made. The tillering was a little challenging on this bow as the mid limb took a bit of coaxing to "pop" and go back the other way. A few nervous moments there, but it was fine in the end. Hope this helps.
Mick.
