Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Adam Keiper on July 17, 2009, 04:24:44 pm
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Making a heavy, military weight ELB out of osage has been on my to do list for a while. I recently had off work for a full week and went on a bowmaking blitz. It was the perfect week to tackle that to do list. The longest suitable stave that I had was stored in a gravel floored crawl space off of my basement. I could tell as soon as I laid a drawknife to it, that it wasn't as dry as I would have liked. But I wanted to start on the spot, so I began working it a little damp. The stave had some nice rings and almost no twist, but it did have a few knots, some lateral snake, and a wicked deflexed dogleg on the upper limb. It took just two rounds of dry heat correcting to straighten everything out and get the string tracking down the handle. Just a little kink remained in the upper limb.
The weather was Heavenly that week and I worked on it mostly outside. Wanting to make the heaviest bow that I could, I just kept floor tillering the stave until I was physically able to push-pull string it. It took probably 10 attempts to get it strung after the last round of shaving. The first brace looked pretty good. I cleaned up the tiller, and then lopped off the temporary string grooves and glued on pronghorn antelope horn nocks, shortening the bow by 2". I kept the bow in my hotbox for a couple of nights during tillering to expedite drying. Nearing final tiller, I braced bow for 12 hours straight to help the limbs settle in. After final tillering and shoot in, the bow pulled 84# @ 30". I returned it full time to my hot box when it was done to fully dry. After several days, the draw weight stabilized. Now, after 30 or so warm up pulls, it draws 88# @ 30". I know that's barely a training weight to some of the serious warbow guys, but that's my heaviest bow to date.
I named the bow, "Odin", after the pagan god of war and death. That seemed appropriate for a warbow. The measurements are 70" ntn with a 2" longer upper limb, and 1-1/8" width at the handle. The belly is deep cored and very round. Here are some pictures. I hope you like them.
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Unbraced and various limb photos.
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Pronghorn antelope horn nocks.
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Last ones. War & peace girl showing braced and me trying to amputate my ear.
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Beautiful,the horn tips are a little long for my liking but the transition to the wood is perfect! If you bend your body into the bow you'll find that beast's easier to pull back.
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Have you shot it yet? I started to make a 70" long bow once from osage, but it ended up becomming a 62" flatbow. I found the longer version to be sluggish and heavy. I'm curious if mine wasn't a good design or I just did it wrong.
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Very nice bow, AK. I like the tips. 8)
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I like it ;D!!! My kind of weight too >:D
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Looks great, Adam! Nice tiller. Jawge
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Looks great Adam, you didn't hurt yourself in that full draw did ya? ;D
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WOW ! Looks painfull :)
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Very nice tiller. Your top limb is long. With warbows, I prefer more equal length limbs, but it's working nicely for you. I love your nocks... especially the bottom one. The nock to wood transition is spectacular. The top nock is a bit long for me, but it's nicely finished. How is the hand shock?
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beautiful bow, i love the nocks- like adb said, that limb-tip transition is great craftsmanship. keep em coming, hope to see more of youre work. -jimmy
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Thanks guys for the comments. So far, I've put 200+/- arrows through this bow during shoot in. As long as I draw the bow back to where it's supposed to go, it shoots very flat. ;) It's overbuilt to use with my normal 25" draw, but due to draw weight alone, it's no slouch with a short draw either. As a test, I took perhaps 3 or 4 dozen shots at the 90 yd butt. It shot noticeably flatter than the 67#/25" flatbow that I compared it with. I think if a little more circular tillering would be used, a 68" length would be safe and effiecient, too, for the width used. Possibly even 66" if the stave were exceptional. It has no hand shock to speak of.
I bought a pair of those pronghorns a few years ago. I intended to use one for each limb, but when I started eyeballing things, I realized that I could get both nocks from just one horn. I used the strongly curved tip section for the upper limb, of course, and the lower, thicker section for the bottom horn nock. I liked the natural hook of the horn and wanted to incorporate that into the nock. I removed all the scaly stuff and sealed the furrows with superglue just before final sanding. The bottom section contained some soft pith, which I bored out with a drill bit. The pith actually daylights on the very bottom of the nock, directly in line with the conical shape of the wooden tip. I filled it with epoxy to seal out moisture and rasped it to shape. It's interesting how the whole horn was black on the outside, but grew almost transparent in color towards the core. You can really see the transparency of the bottom horn nock in one of the photos. Cool stuff. I plan to use the other pronghorn just like this on another bow.
Mike, Any resemblance of the paranthesis to nazi symbols or anything else is purely coincidental. That's just my squiggly penmanship. I'm going out to stump shoot tomorrow with this bow. It should be fun having the ability to use a corner of mouth draw on focused shots, but then haul way back to sink one deep when I want to. ;D
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Adam do you anchor that bench to the ground? Jawge
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Not that one George. That's my portable setup. It breaks down into 2 pieces with a few long lag bolts and wing nuts. With the vise, it's a heavy bugger and doesn't move. I keep it in the garage through summer, so it's handy to move outside; and set up in the basement over the winter. I also have a similar, but permanent vise setup that is mounted atop a steel post. That one is anchored to the concrete floor.
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Thanks, Adam. Jawge
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Love that bow Adam ( minus the horn nocks ;D ) do you consider hunting it ?
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Nice job on the bow. Like everyone else said, beautiful transition on the tips. As for your quotation marks, they are actually a norse/germanic rune, so it actually fits with the name of the bow. A certain group used alot of these symbols, re-associating the meanings to most people.
Sowilo: (S: The sun.) Success, goals achieved, honor. The life-force, health. A time when power will be available to you for positive changes in your life, victory, health, and success. Contact between the higher self and the unconscious. Wholeness, power, elemental force, sword of flame, cleansing fire. Sowilo Merkstave (Sowilo cannot be reversed, but may lie in opposition): False goals, bad counsel, false success, gullibility, loss of goals. Destruction, retribution, justice, casting down of vanity. Wrath of god.
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Sorry I feel silly for mentioning it... IIts why i removed my comment.
Rad Bow.. I hope it serves you well.
Mike
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Awesome bow Adam :)
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Adam, Now there is a bow after my own heart. You did a fine job, all the way around. I am curious about making the upper limb so much longer, not critical mind you, just curious. I have one very similar that bears the Runic symbol of "othel", both #85, both maclura pomifera, both bear nordid appellations, Hmmmm, kinfolk, maybe. Great pictures, thanks.
Robby
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Whew - Montana Elk tremble when you crank this magnum back. We'll look at it again for July Self Bow of the Month.
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The Angles,Saxon,Jutes of England called him Woden.
Wednesday is Wodens day >:D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wednesday
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Cool guys, thanks for the runic info. Maybe I can claim those squigglies have meaning afterall. ;) Robby, I make nearly all my bows with longer upper limbs. I like to have the drawing point of the string roughly balanced with the geometric center of the bow. Limb set seems more uniform and the bow carries nicely through the woods. The longer upper vs. equal limb debate will probably rage on for centuries, though.
I went stump shooting with "Odin" this morning. My bows normally won't accomodate a long draw. My buddy pulls 29" and is left handed. He wanted to try it. "Man, that's stout", he said. "It really sends them!"
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He loned me one of his long arrows as we trekked through the woods. I alternated between a normal draw and a long draw. It was nice to use his arrow and not worry that I might skewer my bow hand. I'll need to make some long arrows to fit this bow.
There's log shelter in these stumping grounds that someone has been maintaining for years. My son and I found it when he was four. I whipped up a story at the time about how this was the home of the last wild indian, whose name is Okueechi. Every time we go back to stump shoot, we always check out "Okueechi's wigwam". My son wasn't with us on this trip, but when he is, I always have to build on that indian story. Some day I'll have to write a book on the Adventures of Okueechi.
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Very nice Adam! if you're comming to Denton this year, you'll have to bring that with you so i can see it! :D
Phil
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Hey ADAM I really like your bowow.... I really enjoy making longbows also, only made one out of osage tho, most of mine are made ot of hickory, some are backed but some aren't. Keep scrapeing.... Denny
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Really nice bow as usual, Adam. That last full draw picture sure looks better than the first one. Looks like you got that peach seed out. ;)