Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Chicknlady on June 04, 2012, 02:51:40 pm
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I got the shaping of my second bow almost done yesterday. It actually went OK, although I broke down and used the body grinder to take the thickness of the limbs down. :-[. Not very primitive but it worked great! The wood was hard enough and my draw knife needs better sharpening... yet another skill I need to work on ::) :laugh:.
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0549.jpg)
The bow is ash, 54" long. It already has some set from the little bit of tillering I did. My first question is, it's still maybe 5 pounds too heavy for me so I need to take some more wood off. Should I take it from the belly, or narrow down the sides of the bow? The ends of the bow are 1" wide and 1/4" thick, and 1-1/4" wide and 3/8" thick near the handle.
The other question is how much should you "round" off the handle on the back of the bow? I think this picture shows a sorta sharp edge that isn't too comfortable for my hand, but I was afraid to cut into the back. Thanks!
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0550.jpg)
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0551.jpg)
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Well if dat dar piece o wood was mine i wood leave the width alone,heat treat it while inducing an inch or two of reflex,then finish tillering it out by removing wood from the belly only,and id narrow the last few inches of my tips to at least a half inch.....but thats just me
Careful chicknlady...these things are addictive and ya might find out soon that your neglecting your yard birds cus your spending all your time on whittlin wood :laugh:
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It's probably narrow enough already, I think Ash is best wide and thin
If you post a pic of it at full draw we can suggest the best place from which to loose a few pounds.
Regarding the grip, stick some thick hard leather on to the back, then shape it to suit and then cover with a thin leather grip.
That's what I do on some of my longbows that have that sharp edge.
Here's a link to a post in my Bowyers Diary showing what I mean, you may find some useful stuff there (the search engine works well)
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/finishing-touches.html (http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/finishing-touches.html)
Check out my website too (Google Delsbows to find it)
Del
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Careful chicknlady...these things are addictive and ya might find out soon that your neglecting your yard birds cus your spending all your time on whittlin wood :laugh:
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What Blackhawk said I just finished a bow, now I have a shave horse, draw knife.... well you get the hint LOL. good luck and I have found blackhawk's avice number one!
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Del, looks like you fitted a thick piece of leather to the back then wrapped the whole thing with a grip? Good idea, I might have to thin the handle down a little since it's almost too thick now.
Blackhawk, I did a bunch of looking and reading into the reflexing, and it sounds a little bit scary. Would you try to reflex it just back enough so it's straight again? From what I read though it goes back to where it was alot. I tried a search here and it was mostly over my head. I have three more sister staves to this one, maybe I'll leave this one alone and practice on No.3!
The yard birds are getting big enough I might move them in with the big girls soon. The bigger they get the bigger the poop-squares are all over the yard from the pen! Yuck :o
lol, Guy, and it's all I needed was another hobby... My husband already thinks I'm a nut-case :laugh:!
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Looking good so far,looks like most of the set is near the handle, I would stay off that if you need more wood off and get the mid limbs bending,set at the handle is the worst,it really shows up at the tips. What weight and draw length are you looking for, 54 is pretty short for a very long draw ,much over 23/24. :)
Pappy
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Well, my thoughts are up already with what's been said, but, don't be afraid of heat treating your bow! You'll be amazed at the importance of the step! It's a no brainer - you don't have to have cauls and forms, etc. If you have a heat gun, just coat the belly with crisco, olive oil, or such and "toast the belly until it's dark but not charred. You can induce some reflex simply by doing basically a "reverse" ground tiller - just give it a little bit of bend in the opposite direction while the wood is heated and hold. It will be a fine starting point for you and will really improve the bow!
Good luck, it's looking nice - post pictures of your tillering and take your time!
Stephen
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Well done on getting this far.
Your bow is bending too much near the handle. Look at the set you are getting - it's all near the fades with the rest of the limbs still straight.
As a general rule of thumb a bow should have no set in the inner limbs, a little should start in the mid limb gradually increasing towards the tips. Any set in the inner limbs affects the resting point of the tip way more than if it's in the mid limb to the tip.
Don't worry about cutting into the back to make it comfortable, I'm not saying you can just hack the back up! but you can certainly radius it fairly heavily as long as you leave an 'untouched' bit down the center.
You say your tips are an inch wide - no tip needs to be wider than 1/2 inch. So mark a 1/4 off each side and reduce the width from midlimb to the new tip width. Again let the lack of set be your guide. Reduce the width from where there is no set to the tip.
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Pappy, I'm looking for about a 35 pound draw. I don't have a scale, but comparing this bow to my 40-pound Martin, I think it's somewhere from 40-45 right now.
Mike, if I taper the outer limbs of the bow down to 1/2" like you suggested, will that take alot of weight off the draw?
As far as the reflex, Parnell, I don't have a heat gun. But somewhere on TV (Norm Abram??) made a steamer for chair legs or whatnot with a long 4" PVC tube and had steam going into it. Anybody try this, would it work OK?
Thanks!
oh, and, would you reflex first, then take the bow down to the poundage you want??
Thanks again!
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If you are going to reflex it I would do it now,I wouldn't steam at this point ,but yes it will work,I just always steam [if I plan to ] first. More way to heat treat than a heat gun,string it slightly backwards and heat on a stove top. Heat gun is a little easier,sell some eggs or hot wings and buy a heat gun. ;) ;D ;D Or you can just go with what you have,just stay away from the fads. :)
Pappy
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Chickenlady
There are a lot of ways to skin a chicken !
May be even more ways to cook it !
You are on the right track by being here and diving into it full on !
I like your attitude and thoughts of no 3 being better than no 2 !
the more you do the the more you will learn !
the more pics you share the better advise we can give you ! So look through some of the other threads on here and see the pics that others post !
I think you want to narrow up the tips then exercise it some and show us your new bow !!
Have fun !!
Guy
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Pappy, a kind PMer alerted me to the fact that heat guns are not nearly as pricey as I had thought, probably alot cheaper than making a Norm Abrams chair-leg bender :laugh:!
Guy, you guys are awesome and thanks for the words of encouragement!
Gotta post this pic, with the following explanation: tonight I was shooting with the little survival bow, and for whatever reason decided to string up the 40-pound Martin recurve (after shooting the self-bow, the Martin is quite the contraption!). I realized a few things, like must be the spring gardening buffed up the arms, I shot the 40-pounder with no trouble. Also that it's way more powerful and I really needed to aim lower: I overshot the bales with three arrows, and although I somehow actually found them all under the grass, I hate hunting arrows so I got out my survey paint and now have orange practice arrows (hence the picture).
Biggest revelation, I want make a bow to shoot more like the Martin, so I need to get more serious and not be afraid of stuff like reflexing and narrow tips... Amen :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:.
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0552.jpg)
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Glad to hear your going to look at the heat gun. Yes, they really aren't that pricey.
Not sure if it was explained - the "toasting" of the belly wood cells compresses them so that they don't take on the memory that would otherwise happen if a bow was perhaps too narrow or had a hingy spot it it's tillering. Good tillering is key so that you avoid hingy spots during the process but toast those whitewood bows!
I haven't done it myself, but I imagine you could do some toasting of bow limbs over a fire, it would be harder to control the heat, though. A small pile of charcoals?
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Well done chickenlady. I am attempting to make my first bow and it also is out of ash. I have three guys giving me some of their thoughts on it and all have made many bows. Mine had some string follow in it so last night "we" set it on a mold and clamped it at the handle. I then smothered the bow, both sides with deer tallow and heated the limbs clamping as they got more limber. After it cooled it took most of the bend out of it but I think some of it will come back. I have short draw shot it many times and it tosses an arrow pretty good.
I to am just starting to finish sanding it and shaping the handle trying to get the sharp edges off the belly side of the bow.
I will continue to read for more help. Thanks for posting this. FYI your bow looks a heck of a lot nicer than mine. I was told by my instructors I have made a character bow, LOL Not sure if they were talking about me or the bow though.
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Hi Jeb! I was typing as you posted. LOL, "character bow"! I like that. The little survival bow I made a few months ago is definitely one of those! Thanks for your description of the reflexing... this is the stuff I'm having a hard time searching for! Most posts just say "heat it and bend it", and my mind is saying, "but what about...." :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: So did you heat just the belly, and actually "toast" it brown like has been mentioned?
mikekeswick, you mentioned that most of the set in my bow is near the fades... to reflex, should I concentrate on heating just those small areas, or do the handle too, or gradually heat the whole thing??
Thanks!
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Chicknlady your doing a great job and have got some excellent bowyers given ya advice so I'm gonna leave that to them since I'm pretty new at making them myself but I do have a tip for ya on your arrows I put a narrow strip of high reflective tape around the shaft behind the feathers infront of the nock that way if they dig under the grass you can go out just at dusk and shine a flashlight and they'll jump right out at ya. Ya might wanna give it a try. Well good luck and looking forward to see your progress.
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You're reminding me of myself 3 years ago. When I went to visit Eddie Parker he gave me the heads up on how to do it. He just coated the belly and blasted away at it with a heat gun constantly moving the gun heating a large area...hitting the sides...briefly and lightly over the back...hitting the belly in circular motions until the wood begins to sort of give. Take a rag and grab the limb and hold in some reflex on the ground for a couple of minutes 'til it cools. Repeat if needed! It's great to clamp a bow in a heat in reflex, don't get me wrong. It just doesn't have to be done.
Another thing that was a beginner's curve for me was the amount of toasting needed. I browned the wood before I had seen it done. You should nearly blacken it - just don't create a coal. A light sanding will take off the outer portion and you'll have more heat penetration into wood cells. Work it gradually in - don't just let the treatment be superficial.
P.s. Next bow - do it a few times during the process. Make sure to give it an initial heavy treatment just after ground tiller before any set has taken place.
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if you have a portable electric heater you can use that to heat treat, and if you have a non bending handle you can rasp the grip area to a nice radius or glue a thin strip of wood on the flat and shape to fit, Bub
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between you guys's replies and the Marc St. Louis thread on heat-treating it's beginning to sink in finally!
Let me see if I have this straight... the heat-treating permanently alters the wood cells in a good way and makes the wood snappier and the bow heavier and less likely to set again. And having no set also keeps it snappier. Steaming, although it will bend the set out of the bow, will not change the wood cells and therefore you don't get the performance advantages. Plus it can get a set again.
Sooooo.... just a few last questions (sooooorry! :-[), if you heat treat it more than once, are you doing a full-treatment each time, like lotsa time and blackened wood and all that?? If you did it at least once already, but need to take wood off the belly to get the poundage right, do you have to heat treat again after that?
And once your DONE, do you sand the black right off all the way, or leave it kinda charred under the finish?
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Yes, yes, no, and yes. ;D`maybe and yes. If you sand all the brown off you have removed the wood( refer to last question) ;) Be carefull heat treating it, especially if it is still a little green. And after you do it or heat it to bend the limbs let it sit and rehydrate for a few days.
If you bend the limbs I'd work on the last 1/3 of the limb and leave the set. But heat and bend it so the tips start to come back level or above the handle of the bow. You cannot correct the set that is already there because the cells have already been damaged or altered.
And, if it was me, I'd use a cheap heat gun from Harbor Freight so you have more control.
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Mullet, I ordered a heat gun today! It was off Amazon, basically the same gun and price as HF, but the company was based in NY, maybe it will get here faster...
So how's everyone think of this. First, I thin down the width of the upper limbs down to the previously suggested 1/2" at the nock. Then, put the whole bow in some kind of jig to hold it about straight, maybe a hair past straight especially towards the tips. Then, heat treat the whole thing thoroughly right from the fades to the tips (do you heat treat the handle??). Then, wait wait wait maybe a week, then tiller, and remove whatever needs to be removed, so's I can shoot it, from the belly.
One last dumb question ( :laugh:), does heat-treating basically "freeze" a bow in whatever position it's in when it cools? So, like, if I heat-treated this bow with it's 2" or so set, no jig, it would STAY like that forever and ever? (more or less??)
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Mmmm, I wouldn't say it freezes it, it just helps prevent set. There will still be some, just not as much and of course, it varies from wood to wood on how much. Some reflex will come out when tillering, generally. It's hard to describe completely, and as you continue to do it - bow to bow, you'll come to understand it's points, naturally.
If you build a bow long and wide - overbuilt, then heat treat - you'll have minimal set, if any, maybe even retain some reflex, but you've got more wood on the bow and will lose some cast. If you really push the limits on building a bow, shorter, narrow, etc., heat treat the bow you may have more set but you've got a more efficient bow so cast may be greater. Then throw in wood to wood, stave to stave, well you probably catch my drift. It's just another thing that makes each bow unique!
Don't be afraid to mess up, as I'm often told, it's only a piece of wood.
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Just an update, since I know everyone is dying to know how it turned out! ;D ;D ;D
Finished (mostly!) the bow today. As per suggestions, I heat-treated the bow in a lightly reflexed position, then narrowed the outer limbs down to 1/2" at the tips... tillered, cut too much in one spot and thought I'd ruined it. It bent badly mid-upper-limb, took alot of set right there at that spot. Luckily I was able to even it out enough to save it, and heat-treated reflexed AGAIN. I don't have a scale, but I think it's about 35 pounds, I was aiming for 40 before the OOPSY :-[.
Shoots nice!! I finished it with (believe it or not) what we call here "BS" (you know what I'm abbreviating!) from an oil well. It's mainly paraffin, mixed with all sorts of nice volatiles, crude oil, and what-nots. Makes a nice waterproofing and preservative, though. Wood doesn't rot much in the oil fields, if soaked in BS. The handle is wrapped with paracord. I didn't glue it, wasn't sure if I'd like it or not, but it seems pretty tight for now. It has about 1-1/2" of set.
About those Flemish strings, does anyone wrap serving around the spliced area below the loops?? The instructions didn't say to, but I find I keep smoothing & waxing the ratty little bits sticking out so it looks better. I also see I made the loops too big, and the twist in the string isn't very symmetrical.
It's not fancy, didn't spend alot of time making it beautiful, but I wanted a usable bow to practice with and eventually take stump-shooting. NEXT bow will be prettier!! :laugh:
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0639.jpg)
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0640.jpg)
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0641.jpg)
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0642.jpg)
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Purdy... My strings are doing the same thing, but I just started making them too. I consider it character to another piece of the puzzle made at home. But no to the serving of those areas. You could put some fluffy silencers or something over them so they aren't seen.
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If the curlies below the nock loops bother me too much I will singe them with a lit wooden match and smooth them down with a little more wax.
Nice looking bow. The paracord makes a good looking handle wrap!
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I don't cut the ends of the tails off flush with the string, I leave about 1/4" sticking out. Then I melt the ends until they're almost down to the string and quickly press the melted end down onto the string. This leaves a hard end that's too big to pull out and get ratty again. It's really important to have wet fingers to press the melted ends down with, so it doesn't stick to your skin and burn like a son of a gun. I also use this trick for the ends when I'm serving the string.
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Try to make the twists in your string tighter together especially below the loop and at the bowyers knot. Once you have finished it eg, done all the reverese twisting then you need to twist the whole string maybe 10 revolutions.
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Here is what you did wrong on your string;
After you make the first loop you will have a lot of opposing twist built up in your string bundles. What happens if you continue,your opposing twist will counteract the twist you put in for your second loop and you will have an area with almost no twist in your string. This is visible in the string you have on your bow.
To eliminate this in the future, after you make your first loop, hang the loop on a hook attached to something solid, grab an individual string bundle and untwist it, full length, until you have parallel strands running from the loop to the ends of the strands. I tie a piece of string at the end of the loop twist to keep it from unravaling while I untwist the bulk of the string bundles. Do the same to the other bundle or bundles if you are making a three lay string.
Now make your other loop with the untwisted bundles of strands.
When you finish your other loop you will have more twist in your strands between the loops on one end than the other end. Holding the loop you just made, untwist the strands on each bundle in the direction of the opposite loop until the twist is pretty even between the loops, not bunched up on one end or the other.
With everything evened up, twist one loop counter clockwise 12 to 15 times to add twist to the entire string. If your string is a little long you can twist it up more to shorten it.
It takes a lot more time to tell you what to do than to actually do it. The untwisting of strands only takes a few minutes and makes a much rounder, evenly twisted string.
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Thanks for the string tips!! The instructions I had were pretty basic, and although they got me through the process I made alot of mistakes. I did try to keep the strings as separated as possible, but with my fumbling around, the twists would unravel some or loosen up, then I'd re-twist them, making a bigger mess each time... ;D ;D The tip about tying on a string to keep things from unraveling sounds great!!!
I'll try another string here soon, hopefully it'll turn out better. ... ;D
So, if you need to take the string off the bow for whatever reason, how do you keep the string from unraveling? Or do you just let it relax however it wants, then retwist the string to get your 12-15 twists?? I think some of my mess was just taking the string on and off...
Thanks!
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Nice job, Lady. You were very persistent for a early try. I looks like you learned alot. I haven't even gotten into heat treating, yet. I am definitely going to have to try it, though. Congrats on your success!!
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Congrats on the nice job there Chicknlady. Now c'mon....you know the rules....full draw shot!
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i do like Erick but instead of a string i use a bag twist tie
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well done on that there bow
glad to see another gal on here
amazing to me how few women get into this
i know women bicycle, motorcycle, semi truck and other vehicle mechanics
women bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters, steel workers, railroad engineers and pipefitters
but have yet to personally meet another woman bow maker
tho ive meet numerous women who shoot/hunt bows
i also make steel bicycle frames
a few years ago at the annual north american handmade bicycle show
got my pic taken with three young gals
at the time the 4 of us were all the women framebuilders-in the world!!
there are 2 more now
enjoyed yr process
look forward to seeing more
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Hi sadiejane! lol, don't know if I could quite call myself a "bowmaker" yet, but I'm having an awful amount of fun with this! Ever since I was little I learned hands-on skills from my dad and uncles, and there isn't much I haven't done. I can swing a hammer better than most guys, and that alone got me an awful lot of respect on construction sites pounding lath (I'm a surveyor).
I've met very few women either who can really build things, and my friends just shake their heads and think I'm kinda kooky... ;D
My attitude is why buy something if you can make it instead? Although the pine-pitch-glue thing is giving me fits... too goopy or too brittle. I might have to cheat and use super-glue on my first batch of arrows... :laugh:
As requested, here's me at full-draw with bow #2, pardon the horrible form, feel free to advise! and yes I'm wearing flip-flops ;)
(http://i405.photobucket.com/albums/pp132/ballen67_2008/IMAG0660-1.jpg)