Sisal backed, painted short bow (updated... broken bow)

[superdav95]

Ah man. I feel your pain.  That was a sweet little bow.  I’ve been caught up with chasing higher numbers on the chrono before and paid the price in similar fashion.  Good excuse to make another I guess.  I would also agree with your thinking on the tb3 vs hide glue.  Tb3 is good stuff but imo it will not adhere as well to wood that has been properly sized and coated with prepped grooved clean wood.  I can’t imagine that I would blame it on the glue though in this case.  I think it just a Mayer of overdraw perhaps.  The bend looked good but pretty extreme through the handle.  Not sure if you have any sinew on hand but that would be an awesome candidate for hide glue and sinew.  You wouldn’t need much really and could get away with shorter strands too with an overlap in the handle then a small cap over lap of sinew the cover both tag ends meeting at the middle of handle.  Just a thought.  Be sort of like a authentic plains bow or something similar with slight reflex.  Would be a great bow actually.  I’ve had this type of build on my mind for a while myself.  Anyway so many project so little time.   Best of luck on your next build. 

[M2A]

Thats a bummer. Too much bend in the handle? Maybe too much stress is a better question? Where was the set? Hard to see in the pics. But yeah I say that is a good guess after the fact.  On selfbows I have made with that profile I try and keep the "fade and handle" area a bit over built until the last couple inches. That area can really get stressed especially nearing f/d. I don't see any extra thickness in your narrowed handle, plus looks to be plenty of bend in the f/d there. Follow the set for your answer, Looks like it was all in the middle 1/3 of the bow? I'd say your belly was just overpowered and failed. Maybe try and trap the back a little on a future attempt, watch for where the set is taking place so you can even out the stress. I don't think the break had anything to do with tb3 vs hide glue but it would be interesting to compare them in side by side builds.
Regardless, keep it up. look forward to what you learn about this. And, how you put it to use in the next build.
Mike     

[Aaron1726]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Dave, I have 2 pieces of backstrap sinew on hand, but that's it and it was a smaller deer too.  So maybe not enough yet to back one, but this fall I will have the word out to family to send their sinew my way.  So hopefully can give that a try eventually. 

Mike, I think some it too may have been like you said about the middle third.  I think I may could have had a little more bend near the tips.  The handle was a little thicker, it was about 1 growth ring thicker, you can sort of see it in the picture after heat treat.  But yeah it was definately overstressed especially with over drawing it...  I am going to be paying much better attention to the set on the next one.

Thanks again guys.  Hopefully the next one will hold up better.  It's fun learning either way, really appreciate the help from folks on here too.

[GlisGlis]

oh that's unfortunate
i never worked with sisal but did some work with other agaves fibers and I found their fibers have almost no stretch so I tend to exclude it's a tb glue issue, I'd put my bet on the handle a little too thin