Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: oscar3b on July 31, 2012, 06:32:04 pm
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Hey everyone! I finally decided to do it! I'm posting my first bow. I've been a member of the forum for awhile now, and I've always wanted to post a bow on here, but I've never gotten the chance. I'm finally posting this bow however. I do have to thank MattS on here however. Without him this bow would not have been possible and I owe him a lot for teaching me how to make it. I read a post from someone else on here, and he said the same thing, but I couldn't have done it without him. My wife may be pretty mad at me however, because I got addicted and now she says that now all I talk about is bow stuff. I talk about other things: arrows, finishes, fletching... ;D
Anyways, now onto the good stuff. This bow is a red oak board bow, with the standard 72" by 1" by 2" (which is really72 x 1 1/2 x 3/4). It a slightly bendy handle, and pulls 50# @ 28", at least the last time we checked. That was before it was shot in so I'd say it's slightly less than that now though. It's full width to mid limb and then tapers to 3/8" tips. If you look at the pictures my tiller was a little off on this one. Like a good noobie I took too much off of the tips so it's a bit whip tillered. It's kinda funny looking at it now, because the top limb looks pretty good, with a fairly elliptical profile, but the bottom limb was definitely whip tillered, and has a more circular tiller. I don't care though. I love this bow. Here it is!
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On a side note, after trying multiple times to post these pics, these were the only three pictures I could post due to the size limit. Does anyone know how I can fix this so I can post other bow pictures as well. I'm actually up to bow #4 but haven't been able to post anything because of this. Just curious. Thanks!
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Nice job, the tiller looks decent with smooth bends. I get the impression the lower limb is bending a little more but I think both are bending well enough that the bow should last you a good long time. Especially if you make another right away. Won't your wife love that?
To reduce size you can open them in your photo program and crop them a bit, and/or when you save them it should ask you what size or quality. Choosing a smaller size or a lower quality will make the file size smaller. Just cropping seems to reduce the file size quite a bit.
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If you aren't already, try imgur.com, it resizes pictures for you, allows multiple uploads at once, and it is super easy to use.
Anyway, nice work on that bow, you did a great job! Is it backed with anything?
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nice job on your bow looks like the bottom limb is bending a little more than the top
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Very nice 1st bow, Oscar!
To resize photos, I downloaded microsoft's photo resizer in the microsoft tools package for Window XP. They also have a version for Vista. Not sure if it is available for Win 7, yet, though. When you copy the photos from your camera or card to your computer, then select all images, right click and select resize photos. You can pick what size, but I use 640 x 480 most of the time. It will not rewrite your photos, but adds new photos with (small) to the file name. Link to download below.
http://download.cnet.com/Image-Resizer-Powertoy-for-Windows-XP/3000-18487_4-10905400.html (http://download.cnet.com/Image-Resizer-Powertoy-for-Windows-XP/3000-18487_4-10905400.html)
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Looks like you did just fine on your first bow!
Tracy
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you are bit by the bug now.... this can really be habit forming ya know? Nice first bow - ain't it great to launch an arrow out of a bow you made yourself?
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Very nice job especially for a first. Looks like your boring your cat though. :)
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Very nice job especially for a first. Looks like your boring your cat though. :)
Or maybe he shot it :o
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Hey everyone! Thanks for the comments. I agree that the bottom limb does bend more than the top. I got a little over zealous with the sure form on that one. I ended up taking down a little at a time, and then a little more, and then I went WAY too much the 3rd time. After that I didn't have to take any more off though. It was at the 50# mark at 28 inches. It just turns out that it worked out that way, but I had whip tillered the crap out of the bottom limb in the process. So much so that I put the tip overlays on to make sure the string would stay on the bow during the draw. Noobie mistakes right?
Tortoise-It's not backed with anything. It's just a self bow. Nothing fancy.
hrhodes-It awesome to get to launch an arrow out from something I made myself. The first bend on the tillering tree, and the first shot is what has me hooked. So much so as a matter of fact that right after this bow, I started two more almost at the same time.
Tom-Yeah my wife thinks I'm crazy. This was my first but I actually just finished bow #4. It was for her though. After making her a bow she doesn't think I'm so crazy. Funny how that works. The other funny part is that I have plans for a 5th and 6th bow, already. Well actually a 7th and 8th and 9th too if you count all of the staves in my garage at the moment. I think you all are right. I do have it bad. It's awesome though!
Eric-My wife's cat would not leave me alone. He just had to be in every picture. He would lay down, and I would move. He would then get up and meow at me and plop right back down at my feet. I thought about shooting it Slackbunny but I don't want to get divorced.
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;DHaha you gotta love that cat
Being hooked is a great feeling and good job on your first shooter, mine was real bad (:
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Good work you're on the way to many more :)
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All of my photos are set up to be sized 640 X480 and generally run about 150-160KB. I found that when I try to adjust the image (even auto adjust) it normally increases the photo to well over the 200KB which is maxomum allowed on this site.
I just go back to my photo album and edit them (revert to original) and then I can post them here.
Good looking first time bow.
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My wife thinks I'm crazy too but she's right. Nice bow. Yes, the bottom limb. What I do is I get in front of a mirror and pull the bow. That way I can tell which limb is stronger. I can also tell when I draw it the first few times to see if she tips on me. If I open a window at night and draw it acts as a mirror. My neighbors think I'm crazy too. :) Jawge
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For a first bow, excellent...mine was a real ugly looking thing. :)
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nice first one! It's far less uneven than my first one. I usually use paint to resize. Depending on what version of windows you have it's different to find the resize tool, but it works great and you already have it, unless you're a mac person, in which case all of what I just said is completely worthless >:D
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If you can get good results like that on your first attempt, you are ruined for life now.
You may as well go buy your wife a really really really nice gift, take her out to dinner, have flowers delivered to the table, and apologize in advance for all the time/effort/money you will be spending on your new addiction.
Or, better yet. See if you can get her out scraping bows with you.
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Hey everyone! Thank you for the kind words and the help resizing my pics. When I get back home I'm going to have to post pics of bows 2, 3, and 4.
JW- I have been trying to get her to work on a bow since I finished that first one. She actually helped MattS on a peach bow one night while I was over there working on bow #2 with him. He had her reducing thickness with a draw knife. Did a good job too! Got a nasty blister though and hasn't tried it since. She says she still want too though! We'll see.
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is this unbacked? I've been wanting to give a red oak board another shot. Everytime i go to lowes either they have none left or the boards are all cross grained.
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It's totally unbacked dictionary. I just selected a board with really straight grain. I've had a hard time finding straight grained boards lately too. What I've had to do the last time or two is look through all the piles of red oak boards. One pile is 1x2x72, another is 1x2x96. I've found several in the 96" (8ft) length. You can either haul it home and cut it yourself or if you have a car like me you can have them cut I there at Lowe's for you, and it only costs 2 dollars more for the 8ft piece vs the 6ft piece. Then you can use the othe piece for tip overlays and handle risers if you want. Another Option which will help your chance of success is to look in the 1x3x72. These pieces are usually around 10 dollars and the real size of this board is 2.5 (I think). The wider the limb the more likely it is to survive so if you rip it to 2" wide or even just leave that width of 2.5 you have an excellent chance of getting a good durable bow.
This is just from my limited experience however and from what I've read. If anyone reads this and sees anything I said wrong or would like to add please do. I only have Four bows finished and limited experience but I still hope this helps.
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Great job on your first bow. Welcome to the addiction.