Author Topic: Overbuilt?  (Read 1442 times)

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Offline Robert Pougnier

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Re: Overbuilt?
« Reply #15 on: February 16, 2026, 09:48:31 am »
It actually reminds me of the meare heath artifact. But this is more elongated and with more efficient and narrow tips.

Online Del the cat

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    • Derek Hutchison Native Wood Self Bows
Re: Overbuilt?
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2026, 10:06:56 am »
Beautiful bow, clean, simple, lovely.
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Health warning, these posts may contain traces of nut.

Offline wooddamon1

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Re: Overbuilt?
« Reply #17 on: February 22, 2026, 01:30:15 pm »
Beautiful bow.

Offline Tuomo

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    • Puujousi
Re: Overbuilt?
« Reply #18 on: Today at 06:06:41 am »
This is a really beautiful bow!

However, the title is something of a joke… I would call this bow underbuilt. It has a very long draw length relative to its overall length; its length-to-draw-length ratio is only 2.15. I personally prefer a ratio of 2.4–2.5 (although Baker recommended 2.3), because then I can be more confident that the bow will take less set and will not break in the long run. This bow also has quite a heavy draw weight, which means it is very highly stressed. I would not dare to make a bow like this myself (I’m not good enough yet!). But you clearly had a very good piece of wood and excellent skill.

A completely different, but very interesting, topic is how to determine what you can get out of a specific piece of wood. For example, with this bow – how did you decide that the stave was good enough to make such a highly stressed bow? Experience and skill, of course, but even then you can never truly know what the wood is capable of giving you.