Sorta Holmegaard, massive tips

[Dane]

Well, here is my second stave bow, made from the fantastic Yooper bow Dana gifted to me.

This was a learning experience, and seems to be a bit of a paradox. I had attempted 2 other holmegaard bows, but broke them trying, which is I guess pretty common, so my biggest goal was to have this one survive the tillering process.

I used the knowledge from adb's excellent build-along, and stuck to his dimensions for the most part. It is 66" nock to nock, with 12" outer non-bending limbs, 2" fades for all four fades, 15" inner bending inner limbs, and a 4" handle. I made it with all hand tools, mostly axe, rasps, and scrapers. The finish is very thinned milk paint, which is very nice stuff to work with. I made pin knocks, and really enjoyed them. I backed the bow with papyrus I found in a local art store.

Through the tillering, I heard a loud "crack". Arg, I thought. On one inner limb, there was a small crack which was causing the wood to lift up. I patched it with super glue and a rawhide patch, and it worked fine. "Crack." The other limb right about midway between the two fades suffered an even worse crack, about 1.5" long, so I did the same thing, and so far, it seems to be holding up just fine with the patches and the backing.

Now, about those massive tips, they mystify me. I expected a very hand shocky bow, but it is very, very sweet and docile, but has very nice cast, with no stack at all. I tillered it to 27" draw, and wanted a very light bow that would be fun to shoot, so I made it about 45 pounds.

If anyone can give me some insights to why there is no handshock, I would be interested in hearing you. The full draw picture, btw, was taken at the New England primitive skills gathering, for which I will be posting a bunch of shots soon, and writing an article for PA as well. The guy doing the honors is Broken Nock, who told me there is not one image of him on the boards. Guess that is untrue now, and I do appreciate his input and trying out the bow.

Clearly, this bow is not bow of the month quality, but is what it is, and I am happy with it. I will also be reworking it completely, to get those tips smaller for one thing. I expect to repost it after that, once I find time to do it.
Dane

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[Dane]

Three more images.

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[Pappy]

Nice job Dane,I've been meaning on trying one of them,How about the hand shock,do they have
much ? looks like they would,I just never shot one before.
   Pappy

[DanaM]

This is the second holmie I've seen made out of my hard maple, wondering why you felt a need to
back it Dane? Hope you enjoyed working with it and I think you did pretty darn good  for your second stave bow.

[Dane]

Thanks much, Pappy and Dana. Pappy, this one has zero hand shock, and I just don't know why, with such heavy outer limbs. Maybe the design eliminates or mitigates shock? Holmie experts may have something to say. It is a ton of fun to shoot, though.

Dana, I was planning to back it only for the look of papyrus, and to see how that material holds up for a future project. But after the splinters lifted, I thought it good insurance, too. I doubt a holmegaard needs backing normally. And it was a lot of fun working with maple. Great stuff for bows and for syrup,

[Badger]

Dane, the concept of a holmie is to have light weight tips, it looks like you could remove a lot of wood from those tips without the limbs bending. Stiff outer limbs are good for not having handshock. They tend to put more energy back into the arrow toward the end of the stroke, loks like you have it bending nicely. Steve

[OldBow]

Never could figure what "hard" maple is.
Neat bow and bookmarked for June Self BOM, too.

[Dane]

The opposite of that soft maple that makes really lousy bows

Thanks OldBow, but I think this is not worthy of the work done around here.

Dane

[adb]

Nice Holmegaard Dane.

[Dane]

Thanks, Adb, and coming from a Holmegaard specailist of your caliber, that means a lot. Your build-along really was the catalyst to finally try another one, and this was the result. I expect future ones will come out better, but just breaking through that barrier to get one to stay together was iimportant.

One question. I plan to make one using hickory laminated to a tropical wood (perhaps lemonwood). Would two tropical wood staves glued up with a z splice, and then laminated to a full length piece of hickory be workable for a holmegaard? I'm concerned about the handle design in this kind of bow being able to work with a z-splice.

Dane

[adb]

Sure! Should be no problem. I did a handle spliced hickory backed maple Holmegaard.
Your bow looks pretty good. Maybe lighten the tips a bit more.

[Dane]

Good advice which I am taking, adb. I plan to re-post the bow once I get that done and refinish the weapon.

[Dane]

Oh, and thanks about the wood advice, too. That means I will go for it, and see what happens. My still sorta-new thickness planer will come in handy in this instance.

Dane

[ricktrojanowski]

Wow,  that's a wild looking bow.  I wish I saw it in person while at NEPSG. 

[Phillip K]

I would say that is a spectacular accomplishment. I like them Holmgaards a lot never seen one the same yet. What Ive seen on this forum there all works of art.PK