Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: jamie on August 07, 2007, 11:13:10 pm
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eddy said i needed a challenge so here it is. its cedar loaded with pins and one limb has about 5 branches stickin out of it. itll be built using only stone thats in my woods. first pics are me gettin it down and cut to length with a piece of basalt that i just knocked an edge off to get a sharper edge. oh yeah the tree was standin dead. ive used dead cedars before but not with rocks. then its me roughin it out and what i got done tonight. quartz works great on a clean stave but i just wanted to grab some good chert as this was the longest it has taken me to rough out a bow with stones and i didnt even get it floor tillered. 2 1/2 hrs so far. i didnt split it just scraped it to size cause i was afraid the knots would tear out and ruin the stave. looks to be about 64" long. have patience this is going to take some time. i may even rock boil some hide glue and sinew or rawhide back this sucker. peace
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic002.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic003.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic004.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic009.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic016.jpg)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic017.jpg)
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man ill be watchin' this build close.
great job jamie.
let me gues..."simple d bow" right!
cant wait!...o maybe flipped tips...am i close!
jamie b.
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wow thats cool. is using rocks to rough it out hard?
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looks like fun, when I can get some nice rocks to bang to shape, I'll get started on a stone age bow, Cedar seems like a good choice as I would think it would be easy to wok with stone tools.
Sean
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Legend !! ;)
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HOW DOES I LUV IT ! Let me count the ways, 9,674- 9,675 ! ;D ;D ;D.......bob
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Nice Jamie, this will be fun. Show us how a caveman does it. ;D
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Nice jamie,looks like it is as hot there as it is here.Did you split it down the middle or work
it down ? :)
Pappy
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pappy i didnt want to split such a small piece with that had so many knots in it so i just scraped it down.
as far as easy it aint. id rather work a clean piece of white wood with chert. this quartz is real good for quartz but chert is way better. knots are sort of tough to work.
as far as style im sure itll be a flat bow thinking of decrowning it so i can work the soft wood rather than the heart.
heres a pic of the pile of quartz im using
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic014.jpg)
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Hey Jamie. Got a piece 80 inches long, split in half with about 13 knots. It is starting too curl slightly while drying--about 5 weeks. I'll be watching. Soon as I get my shaving horse back from PatB's, I'll start on it. I will be interested in the dim's and poundage. BTW my daughter in Simsbury says its as hot there as it is here (94 yesterday). In anticipation.
Dick
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Awesome project Jamie. I like the look of that cedar, can't wait to see more progress.
Alan
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I think I got ya'll for heat. It's a nice uncomfortable 120 here right now. >:( Have a good day. Mike
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Jamie, you rock! Pun intended! :) Jawge
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Cant wait to see more. This looks like it going to fun, for us anyway. ;D
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ya know ya would think that i would be chompin at the bit to use a rasp or bandsaw with this project. but all i really want is a good piece of chert. i have normanskill from new york staring me in the face and i know it was heavily traded throughout new england but i just gotta do this one with local material. this ones gonna take some time. the nice thing is i keep learning more from each one of these i build.
as far as heat goes im gettin sick of it. the air is like soup this time of year. usually dont complain about it cause its something i cant fix but its startin to suck. today is supposed to be close to 100 and very high humidity. i roughed it out a bit more and started to bend it a bit. i have a feeling being mostly sap wood its gonna be pretty stout. peace
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This is very cool.And I'll be watching closely.Its hard to find anyplace else were you can witness/learn such skills.I hear ya on the heat it was 99 yesterday here.Thanks for shareing.tradrick
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i think the next one will get videod so everything can be seen. should of thought of it sooner. peace
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Sweet build along. Truly stonage... you don't even get to pick the rocks you use ;D!
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Jamie, cool that you are limiting yourself to just what you have on hand. And as for the weather, it will be bitterly cold and snowing before you know it. Then we will wish for the heat, humidity included. Just drink lots of fluids, and don't overtax yourself.
Dane
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dane i can walk around all winter in a tshirt and flannel and be perfectly content. :)
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Ah, one of those winter lovers, eh? I love hot weather, the hotter, the better. Bet you I'm the only one in this community who doesn't mind heat waves. It is probably 96 degrees in my office now, and I have a nice hot cup of joe here.
Grew up in the desert, and so I would prefer dry heat, but any heat is better than snow and ice. But, I am way to young to be a "snow bird" so I live with the sucky winter. :)
Dane
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I'm with you Dane,....can't function in cold ;) ;)
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You guys are sick! ;) I'm with Jamie! ;D Give me cold and snow any day...as a matter of fact, every day! 8) Pat
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i had a bit of trouble with it today. i was decrowning it and found that one of the biggest knots that was about 6 inches down from the tip was pretty much the width of the whole limb. i piked it just below the knot. bow is probably about 52-54" long and has taken about 3" of reflex. just about floor tillered. i'll get some more pics up later. oh yeah went for a walk with the kids and saw a nice elm sapling and we chopped it down with some quartz. got it split too. i figured out a cool way to split these things with very little effort. when ive chopped about half way through the tree i give it a sharp bend away from the cut and the tree will split as much as i want it to. this last onei had split about a foot up the tree before i even dropped it. then just put a rock wedge in it put my fingers in the split and tore it apart making sure i was careful to control the split. works real well. peace
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That is a good idea Jamie. Split that sucker while it is half connected and it will stay in place for you.
Pat, I like it warm. You can live here and have both. Nice and warm, then drive 30 minutes and have 2 feet of snow. Go back home and your feet get dry and warm. Justin
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this build along will be interesting. I'm also a winter person. living north of the arctic circle I love snow and days when it's between -15 to -25 it was +25 today and I was sweating like a pig :D just waiting for the winter to come. Stop global warming! oh, and all of my temperatures are in centigrade ::)
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Hey Jamie, this is going to be very interesting. Nice looking piece of wood. Can't wait to see what you can do with it.
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It was just short of a 100 here today, I am ready for October. I have used some cedar under clear glass but not as a selfbow, this should be good.
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roughed out and mostly floor tillered. still have one weak spot.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/1.jpg)
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Looks like a bow to me :). How much thicker did you have to make it than, say, hickory or hophornbeam?
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kegan id say its about the same. i wasnt worried about bein too light cause im gonna load up the sinew.
all right heres some pics i think you'll like. makin glue with rocks
setup
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic019.jpg)
gettin it warm
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic020.jpg)
boilin with rocks
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic021.jpg)
preparing some sinew while it boils
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic024.jpg)
gettin it thick
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic027.jpg)
we have glue and the bow is sized
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v288/coyotebow/primitive/cedar/pic028.jpg)
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Oooo, exiting! :) This will be fun. How long are you going to wait before you start tillering it?
Sean
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This is awesome Jamie! Who needs to read the history books about early man when we have you.
THE STONE AGE RULES!
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i plan on laying on 4 layers of sinew and burned up most of my extra time making the glue. i'll get a layer on tomorrow. then when i get back to the fire pit ill reheat the glue and put the other coats on.so probably wont be tillering till the end of sept. but i should have it done so i can hunt with it. peace
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This is awsome ;D. How did you make your glue (and what kind of rock did you use)? This is deifnately gonna be one awsome bow :)!
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it just ended dude you need to finish the build along!!!!!!
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made the glue from fish bladders and hide scraps.
didnt forget to finish i have just not had the time to go any further. i will post pics of the bow later. it has taken about 3" of reflex from the sinew. working on this project i met up with a good friend of mine i hadnt seen in a while and he put me in contact with a fella out west who has been studiing native bows made from splits of live trees . where they removed the stave from the living cedar tree without taking the whole tree down. that is definetly my next project. i may give him this bow for his research. he sent me some very interesting articles he has done. i want to scan them and post them eventually. peace
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ya dude! That is definitely some slick Jedi bow moves, to remove a section of living tree, not kill the tree and make a bow from it. Dude is a Bow SURGEON!
PS. Finish the build along.. hahahaha ;D
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Also where can you buy fish bladders? Yesterday I had to go to chinatown to get sinew, its about the only place in toronto to get it, apart from the animal pound.
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This is an excellent build-a-long Jamie. I had little idea how our ancestors constructed bows given their limited tool sets. Very impressive.
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my very first post on this forum was about buying a u-finish hickory bow for my first project, i received lots of great advice along with this response from Jamie
when your done listening to these guys send me an email and i'll walk ya through doing it with pieces of broken rock. >:D welcome to the addiction. peace
Jamie, sir , i thought you were kidding..lol....holy cow....looks like its going well so far, you now have my attention. i hope to be able to do something like this eventually.
Bishop
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Glad you mentioned the living tree stave, I believe there is mention of it in one of the TBB books. A sketch I think stave taken from a limb. Sure sounds better then what I went through last weekend. Elm & Hop horn beam madness. Can't wait to see the results of the build along. And how are your children doing with there bow?
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had it out to 24" drawing 46#. decided to touch my face . thats when i felt the top limb skim by my head. oh well i'll just start another. peace
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AWWWWW! man thats rough, i had a oak board bow , i think it was my first bow. I was trying to replicate a bow from a novel i was reading, it was rediculously overbuilt but I thought that would mean a better bow at the time. Live and learn eh? Well anyways it was 6foot ntn 3" wide at the fade, to 5/8" at the nocks it went from 3/4 inch thich at the Fades to 1/2 thick at the tips i thick, i had about 4 layers of sinew on it. I got it to about 80lbs at 21" and BOOM! i took off and found a home in my buddies braces. He was standing over top for some reason. That ould have been a cool bow.
A true testement to unneccesary overbuilding
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I had a similar experience with my second attempt. It was white oak with no sinew, and probably would have been fine as a 50# bow. Instead, I was trying to tiller it out to 80#. I stepped into my garage on the way out to work and decided to just yank it to the spot I had earlier gingerly tillered it to. 6 inches snapped off one limb and smacked me in the temple. My vision was blurred, and I thought I was seriously injured, then I realised my glasses had disappeared. I found them across the room. So much for my Welsh war bow; should have used elm anyway. I was wondering how long it takes to boil down hide glue with rocks? I made some sinew glue on the stovetop out of trimmings from my bowstring and that took about 5 hours of simmering, and I still had leftovers for my dogs. I dipped my string in the stuff to stabilize it after trimming and I'm currently drying the rest.