Static recurve questions...

[elijahjmhutchinson]

Here's a static recurve I recently made from elderberry. It pulls about 40lbs. I'm just including it here as an example but my question is about siyahs. Is there any reason I couldn't make an asiatic-ish bow design with glued siyahs and a steamed, set-back handle that's roughly 60"? It would be a sort of self bow, but with glued siyahs as opposed to steamed recurves. I want it to pull about 35-40 lbs. Has anyone done something like that before with success??

[PatM]

Sure.  It helps to use more elastic wood and sinew backing too though.

[RyanY]

It’s possible. You don’t see a lot of short bows in that design because the bend radius of the wood is so tight that the wood gets thin to accommodate it and you need wider than comfortable limbs to achieve average draw weights. Sinew would definitely help and 60” isn’t that short depending on the amount of reflex at the handle and the length of the siyahs.

[bownarra]

What they said ^^^
Also don't build in any handle reflex.

[Del the cat]

I'm working on something along those lines at the moment. Aiming for a heavy boo backed Yew with siyahs.
All a bit experimental, doing a low weight mock up to get the geometry right first. I'll be posting a Youtube vid later today hopefully.
Del

[elijahjmhutchinson]

Thank you guys for your help! I think I'll just choose a stave with a tiny bit of natural handle reflex. 

[elijahjmhutchinson]

For others who may be interested, here's something I dug up on the forum from years ago. http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,16102.0.html

[PatM]

Those are mine! lol