Latest composite prodigy/finished/with arrows

[loefflerchuck]

Beauty!

[BowEd]

Thanks Chuck.I always admire your work.
Here's a picture of a lesson learned.I knew in my gut I was taking chances shooting arrows not built up strong enough but went along shooting them anyway.Well from now on an insert of at least 2" of horn and wrapping of at least an inch below the nock throat of these self nock arrows will be a must with a bow like this.
A partial or almost complete dry fire came when this arrow nock blew out while shooting this bow in some time ago.Relieved the arrow was the only thing broke here.That horn insert there is around an inch long that blew out.No wrapping whatsoever.It had been shot a number of times before it blew.

[Bjoern Sofeit]

Wrapping them with a little sinew should prevent this.

[BowEd]

Yes.

[Marc St Louis]

Very nice Ed. 

I like your bracing jig.  It's very similar to one I made years ago but looks a bit sturdier than mine.

[BowEd]

Yes it is a bit of overkill in size that is needed really.I did want it to be 1.5" thick though.
So I made a lighter weight  more portable type out of a 2" by 12".Setting on top of the first I made in the picture.It will attach to the back end of my pickup easily for use in the field.
For future horn bows or similar I feel it will come in handy someday.

[Marc St Louis]

Yes it is a bit of overkill in size that is needed really.I did want it to be 1.5" thick though.
So I made a lighter weight  more portable type out of a 2" by 12".Setting on top of the first I made in the picture.It will attach to the back end of my pickup easily for use in the field.
For future horn bows or similar I feel it will come in handy someday.

Well I've been commissioned to make a 150# recurve so I'll have to get my old bracing jig out of storage or make a new and improved one

[BowEd]

Zoweee!!!That's a war bow!My arm is sore just thinking about that poundage.A recurve...How short a recurve?
You'll have to use at least 3/4" thick pegs to hold those tips into place.....lol.Hope you show it along the way when it's done.Is it supposed to be a laminate or a sinewed bow?Surely not a self bow.

[Marc St Louis]

Well I've never made a recurve over 90# so this will be a challenge.  It will be drawn to 32" and used for target so I'll make it long enough to survive for awhile

[Stick Bender]

That one sounds like a long range target bow Yikes ! I have never met any body that could pull a 150 lb. Bow !

[BowEd]

I'd find it hard to make a bow I can't shoot.

[PEARL DRUMS]

I don't look in this section often, as a result I missed this one. Fantastic work Ed. It looks amazing.

[BowEd]

Thanks Chris.The traffic on this thread is kinda like active service in the army.Lots of quiet boredom then hot and heavy action.

[Stick Bender]

Ok maybe I spend to much time thinking about these bows but I was thinking if your bow was a 7 or a 7 1/2 by Adams numbers and near perfect by the mass principle relying on Adams numbers as far as durability meaning your bow and materials are 2 1/2 points less stressed then a solid Turk bow Ed I don't think you have enough years left to burn it out providing no hidden flaws in material !

[BowEd]

Yes Ritch time will tell.I expect to shoot it a long long time.It's a fun bow to shoot.Pretty smooth with a whispery snap on release with no hand shock that I notice with around 10 gpp arrows.Mass is high according to Adam's numbers.Less working limb would lessen that some and increase performance in the process too.
Well after 3 to 4 weeks of shooting pretty much every day I feel it is finished and shot in.I decided to just keep it pretty simple.I put birch bark on it and stained it with a light tan leather dye.The horn has overlays of bloodwood on tip overlays and palm of handle.Black and red silk wraps also.I tillered it down to 48#'s @ 28".It ended up mass weighing @ 17.50 ounces as is now.It rests back @ 10.5" reflex within a day from shooting.Just unbraced after 6 hours of shooting a scooch over 8" reflex.Thought it might be a good opportunity to show it against my self brain tanned buffalo hide hung over my target back stop and a buck I shot a couple of years ago with a winged elm self bow and dogwood arrow.Thanks for looking.










Shooting it in was fun so to the round bale butts I went.With it getting pretty warm lately into the mid 90's most times I shot towards the end of the day.Shooting into the side of the bales was best.Into the ends of the bales run the chance of losing my arrow disappearing into the bale too deep.Nice hard hitting bow.


I made some self nock reinforced douglas firs for it.50 to 55 spine shoots well off this bow with 145 grain field points.


I also made up a fdc on the bow.

This 48# bow shot a 495 grain arrow with a 3gpp string @ 28" in the mid 180's consistently.Just a little faster before it got shot in.I can honestly and safely say if shooting a 480 grain 10 grain per pound of draw weight arrow it would be close to 190 fps consistently.Shooting a 600 grain or 12.5 gpp hunting weight arrow around 170 fps.That's 38.5 ft.lbs. of kenetic energy with a good 0.4529 momentum ft.lbs./sec.More then enough for whitetail deer or larger game is so desired.All in all I'm pleased enough with the bow.I did learn a few things though with it along the way from making bows like this previously.There are give and takes when constructing as far as percentages of thickness of materials.Previously I opted for a thicker core 50% and two 25% thicknesses of composites.The bow shot outstanding.With the widths of the limbs the same this time I went with thicker horn percentage.It reduced the set taken but because of horns' density and mass the speed is slightly reduced also with the longer working limbs.It's also reflected in the mass weight.Previous bow was 60" long.This one 58" long but still the same mass weight finished.It's what I would call an intermediate type horn bow.It still is a very quick bow and very comfortable to shoot.Rivaling most any FG bow out there.Some self bows I've made here too though only shoot 10 to 15 fps or less slower.Construction time of course is quicker just making a self bow.Making a sinewed bow like this with this amount of sinew will take longer to cure of course and is the real time consumer.The addition of horn first before sinewing actually only takes an extra day or two at most in construction time and glueing with the right tools.More then likely I will use it quite a bit for all types of shooting and hunting.

As promised earlier on thread the results of hunting season with the bow and dogwood arrows:
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,64444.0.html
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,64648.0.html