Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => HowTo's and Build-a-longs => Topic started by: Sanford on July 22, 2010, 11:36:39 am
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Hey guys!
I am new to this community in particular, but have built a few bows in the past. Thought I would share my build I am currently working on.
OK so that makes it sound like, hey, yeah I just decided to starts building a bow and I'll show you the whole thing.
Wrong,
This seems to be a project that I have been putting off for almost two years. Way back when, I ordered the Bamboo, Ipe, and hickory, which was pre tapered (yeah I'm slightly lazy sometimes) from Jim at Rudder bows, who has always been helpful to me. Well so I glued that up last summer since I ordered them in the winter, and was waiting for warm weather so My URAC 185 would dry. My attic above the garage tuned out to be a great heat box...
hmm, you might be thinking, why not just build a heat box.....silly you! you forgot I'm lazy. But really I am a full time Mechanical Engineering Student who also works, rock climbs, mountain bikes, runs, and is captain of a SAE Mini Baja team, so I somehow found things to do besides finish the bow.
So basically I have no pictures of my glue up. All that I did was sand everything, slap some properly mixed per spec Urac on there, used some shrink wrap and reflexed the box in a form. Let it Dry, then glued on a riser, let that dry. Then i Decided, just to be safe, because as I always say, saftey third, I would let the bow glue really dry......and wait another year before I touched it again.
Which brings everyone up to date!
I'm shooting for a 67'' NTN (with the reflex) bow. With a wieght of about 55-60 lb at about 29'' of draw. Not to picky about the wieght, rather it be heavier.
So I finally cut out the limbs and roughed out the handle using a belt sander, band saw and tears of joy to wash away the saw dust. Which Brings me to the first pictures. (see below)
So yeah, roughed it all out here, arrow shelf was pretty high so that was gong to have to come down a bit. So after trying to will the handle into shape with only my mind, I decided to use a 4 sided rasp, which worked much better than my telepathic powers, and resulted in this...(see below)
So i sanded the back down and got most tool marks out of the limbs and did some more handle work.......
You might be asking yourself at this point a few questions
A.) Why is this guy so wierd?
B.) Why would you spend that much time on the handle pre tillering stage?
as for A, no idea. ANd B, i wanted the challenge of making the entired bow without scuffing up the handle ( or I'm an idiot)
Oh well, must be very careful.
So then the i moved onto tillering. I had to make a tillering tree, using various scrap woods. and i have pctures of that pluss the early stages of tillering that I'll soon post.
Until next time.....
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For more Pictures and to see my process a little better, visit my web album here, and check out what's there. I'll make sure the important stuff gets onto the forum though.
http://picasaweb.google.com/KNagy88/BowBuild# (http://picasaweb.google.com/KNagy88/BowBuild#)
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Ok so i uploaded some more Photos to the album, involing the tillering process. Also attached here relate to the first post after I did some more handle work.
I built the Tillering Stick out of a 2x4 and some screws, nothing fancy, but get the job done!
I will tiller using mainly the Rasp, My knife, and some sand paper. Knowing that shaping the hanlde so much then tillering was a bad thing, but i blatantly ignored that, I want to give a word of advice. Many things could go wrong, including your bow breaking, meaning you wasted your time. Well not completely, you will have learned something and will also have a great looking handle. For me, Even though i used padding between the vice and the handle, I still damaged the wood a little, meaning I will have to sand it down further. See, its best to just leave a lot on the handle so you don't even have to worry about it. I on the other hand, will be Extremely Careful.
Haven't go to far on this yet, as i want to take my time with tillering the bow to perfection. Any advice on proper Reflex deflex tillering would be awesome and well appreciated.
Thanks to Josh for the picture advice, and here are some more. Also check out the web album in my second post for more!
And P.S.
I'm a really bad typer, and i harldy ever read back over for mistakes, so sorry for the misspells, un-capped letters, and sentence fragments. Sometimes I go back and Modify what I say if it's way off.
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I like your style. great build along so far. Welcome
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If you click on "Additional Options" below the type box when you are making a new post, you can attach up to 6 pictures 200kb or less directly from your pictures folder on your computer. Click "browse" and find the folder on your computer with the pic you want to attach and hit "open". After you attach your first pic, click "more attachments" to the right of the attach box and another attach box will open under the first one. I think you can post up to 6 pics per post this way. That is the easiest way to attach pics to your post. :)
*EDIT* Cool you got it working now... :)
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And some more of the tillering process....
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Yeah thanks again Josh! You'd think attending a nationally ranked engineering university (University of Illinois) would require some sort of intelligence.....
.....i guess not....
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Also, been thinking ahead here, and can't decide what to finish the bow with. I have used a number of different brands and methods in the past. I built an Ipe backed with Hickory, and used Deft because i was told it dries on anything, and it did, and looked and still looks amazing. Would use it again and still may but for one problem, it seems to scratch off. For that bow i shoot off the knuckle, and i have a spot worn where the arrow hits the handle. Some may say, well just get a strike plate duh! But i like the simplicity of that bow. Im ok with a little where, its easy to see where i grab the bow everytime. But i've noticed it scratches in other places easy too. So i plan on re-finishing that bow, while making handle adjustments for comfort/asthetics. so any advice on finishing IPE would be good too.
So other more important question is what people would reccomend for finishes in general that bring out the woods natural color for the bow i'm making now. I'm not a big fan of staining the wood, as I feel like the natural wood color looks the best in most cases if done right. Also, i want it to be a protective finish. What i don't want is for my bow to look like it has a layer of glass on it because the finish is so thick haha. So yeah i guess i'm picky? so what.
So yeah, looking at protective, satin/ low gloss. Now witht hat strip of IPE, i'm willing to put some seal on it so a normal finish can be used for the rest, because i know some won't dry on ipe. any suggestions there would be good too.
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lots of people use tung oil or tru-oil, but i like to use Minwax wipe-on poly, it's clear satin and it looks great, really brings out the color.
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Ok so coming right along here
I have been doing a little bit of tillering here and got about 6 inches or so. I decided I actually want to make a higher draw weight. Shooting for about 70-75. Shouldn't be a problem considering this bow is like an iron tank with the combo of woods I got glued up.
I also started on the Knocks, nothing too fancy, I'm kinda going for a simplicity theme with this bow. Still going to shape the knocks a lot before its done, just got the rough cut out.
And really, I don;t know if i smell or what, but any input on tillering and tillering advice on the R/D would be helpful, and I'd love to get the input.
Also, check out that little file kit, went to lowe's looking for a specific file to do the knocks, and it was about 8 dollars. Then i saw that 23 piece kit for only 18. I was like what? jackpot. Totally worth it!
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I would test the breaking strength of those screw heads...I wouldnt feel safe putting 50-60 lbs on them.
My old subwoofer ripped the heads off 6 out of 8 of some fairly string dry wall screws
(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p67/aznboi3644/DSC02393.jpg)
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;D That must be a crazy powerful subwoofer :o
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Yea noted on the screws.
I have though of that and did take one precaution by angling the screws done so that the force of the string is directed both parralel and perpendicular to the screw axis. What does this do one might ask????
Well by having some of your force vector pointing down the shaft of the screw, you take a way some of the moment that is put on the screw. If all the force is normal to the screw, then you put the biggest moment on the screw.
But having said that, this doesn't mean anything if the force is to great for the screw anyways! So may change that!
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Looks like it is comming along nicely.
Just for future reference, putting the ipe on the belly makes for a better bow. The denser wood is better in compression for the belly, but in the middle of the sandwich it mostly just adds weight.
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Justin- thanks!
And yeah i thought about that too. The whole Ipe in the middle. Probably didn't need it anyways. Mostly pleasing to the eye. I actually love working with IPE. I like how hard it is, because i like to use power tools, and it very hard to mess up. Where as using less dense woods, sometimes I get carried away.... Its heavy and all, but man does it make a fast bow. I wouldn't expect it with the weight, but it performs. In this situation though, i think your right!
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Justin- thanks!
Its heavy and all, but man does it make a fast bow. I wouldn't expect it with the weight, but it performs. In this situation though, i think your right!
It takes less wood (thickness and width) so the physical weight of the bow should be the same with a hickory bow as it would for a Ipe.
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Ok so, spent a long time yesterday trying to get this thing shooting, and I did, but ran into some problems.
I ended up getting to 28 inches at about 75 pounds, and the tiller was looking respectable, as you'll see i should have noticed a hinge in the top limb. The bottom is where i want it, but the top was definately off. Well i shot the bow a few times and checked the backing for damage, and sure enough had a little teeny lettle crack.
Right then and there should have patched that section and maybe treaded it to prevent any more damage, but know, i wanted to see if it would raise........it did, as you'll see in the pic.
So I raised a splinter from node to node on the limb, but it is ery very shallow, and i have faith that i can fix this. I want that part of the limb stiffer anyways, so i was to repair the length of the splinter, hopefully stiffening that part of the limb, giving a better tiller.
So I'v been reading about wyas to fix things like these, so i have some ideas. I was thinking about glueing the slinter down with Bow grip 100 that I have laying around. Then Sanding the back flat. After that i was thinking of a stip of white silk or poterntially clothe fiberglass, soaked in more epoxy or superglue, Then wraping the raised end with thread of some kind, and maybe a wrap at the other end. Not sure what kind of thread to use though. How does this sound? I've never repaired one of these so advice would be helpful.
Since the tiller is off, if i repaired it, and didn't thread it, would fixing the tiller be possible, then thread it after that, or do you think it will lift without the thread?
Ok wel thanks guys! I still am getting a bow out of this, don't worry!
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Dang, Someone could really make some money starting a business selling homegrown bamboo. Too much splintering boo lately for my tastes. Or maybe someone could convince the chinese to send us some old growth instead of first year crap. >:( >:( >:(
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did you sand the nodes on the boo?
they look like they were sanded pretty flat,that may have caused a failure in the power fibers and causing it to splinter up at
the node like that
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SailorDad, Yeah I did, and that was pretty much why it happened I came to the conclusion. I didn't sand them completely flat but too much. I was hoping that I didn't get to carried away but it appears I did.
Which is why I think I'm going to repair it using (dun dun dunnnnnnn).........fiberglass......you traitor.....
I know this is a primitive site but hey, I'd rather have a bow that shoots then a piece of scrap wood! Besides, I've already used high tech glue and power tools galour, I'm not that primitive!
So my plan is (and please help me out if this sounds terrible to anyone, If it sounds feasible, let me know.) to glue down this splinter using some urac or bow grip, both of which i have in stock, and are both gap filling so should create a strong seal between the fibers. Then sand that all good after it's cured. Next I'm going to back the entire bow with some clothe fiberglass, using bow grip for the glue. Saturate that, it should become mostly see through, and then sand that up and put some finish over it, and from a distance, it should come out looking like its still bamboo.....ish
My reason for the whole backing is because my fear of basically what sailordad pointed out, that the nodes are too sanded down, and may fail elsewhere without backup, even if i fix the broken spot now.
So I feel confident that this will keep the bow together, with just the glued down splinter and the backing, If anyone begs to difffer let me know. I want this to work though because it will leave room for tillering.
i know its not very primitive but hey, you got to do what you got to do.
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I'm no expert,jus my 2cents,if you get mid limb bending more it will take some stress off da limbs where that splinter lifted.If you sanded nodes not sure if it will hold up to 75# regardless.As for the f-word,If you get to much material on the back and over power the belly looks to me the belly will fail.If it was me and i'm good at fixin mistakes becuz I'm hard headed and Have to see!!I would rip that boo off and put another piece on if you got it.Thats jus me.Great lookin bow and cant wait to see the end results.
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Thats a possibility....
I was palning on dropping wieght after the fiber glass.
As far as new bamboo, stripping that off there may not be my specialty, anyone know the best way to do that? I don't think that will happen but we will see.
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HOOOOOkaaayyy every body....
Repair is happening as we speak. Will post some pictures when I get some time, results are pending.
I ended up epoxying the splinter down, and sanding it flush with the rest of the boo, then proceeded with a backing. Backing is drying. After that, i'm considering some hemp twin as a wrap on both ends, but we will see. Welll hopefully i can show everyone a working bow by the end of the weekend.
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Ok so epic fail. I think the bamboo was beyond repair. So I decided to strip the bamboo and reback it, I am still getting a bow out of this
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Well,
Sorry I have been so absent lately (for anyone who cares haha). After the bamboo cracked and my failed backing attempts and the bamboo was still not holding, I ended up Stripping the Bamboo of using a Belt sander and some really heavy grit paper. Really didn't take long at all, Just had to be careful when we go through the bamboo, so the ipe didn't get damaged.
I then ordered some bamboo that will hopefully work a little better this time around. Already gotta a good tiller going so hopefully it wont be too much difficulty getting it to where i want. No idea where the draw weight will end up. When it broke it was around 70-75, so hopefully I can get a 60-65 pound bow out of it.
Have been really busy lately with school about to start, gotta finish up my undergrad here at U of I, so I am not sure when this will be complete, could be a while. Bamboo hasn't arrived yet. I wrapped the bow in shrink wrap air tight to keep the wood semi protected. Hopefully it'll keep moisture out.
Well when this extremely long project turns out, I'll let you all know. Lets see if we can get this three years in the making.,..... I sure hope not... haha
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Good news! bamboo came in the mail! Now i jsut need a free weekend to finish this sucker, oh man this could be a while......
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Ok so just in case anyone came across this thread and wondered "Did this guy die? What was the fate of this poor soul? Who was Sanford and what did he see?" I'll inform you...
About a year after getting the new bamboo strip in I finally finished up my undergrad, which consumed all of my time. I landed a job straight out of college and was able to get a little bit of free time between starting the job and finishing college. So i was finally able to attempt to put the backing on in summer of 2011. Long story short, this did not go to well. Apparently, when I glued up the backing again, I wasn't able to get a good mesh between the bow and new backing. I think I used poor clamping, and the sanding off the original backing wasn't perfect. So, sadly, this bow's fate has finally met it's demise. Still have the bow, but don't trust the wood much, it has been exposed to elements for about 2 years now. My new job, new fiance, and moving 3 times in 3 years really put a halt on bow building. But I will take up the helm again when I can get a permanent place to work again....
Until then I'll be checking out everyone's good work!