Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: 1Brotherbill on August 28, 2012, 12:24:12 am
-
Third crack at a bow and I have something that can shoot an arrow.
Now I have some questions about what I have.
The bow is a laminate of Red Oak and White Ash. I took a 2" x 1/4" x 62" piece of Red Oak and glued it to a 2" x 1" x 62" piece of White Ash. I also had a twelve inch piece of White Ash glued to the belly at the mid point for the handle. As it turned out I could have went with a smaller piece of White Ash because I ended up tillering off most of the White Ash to get a good weight.
Bow pattern tapers out to the nocks form the handle. Draw weight is light around 25 lbs. Measures about 61" ntn. I didn't put a scale on it because I wanted to make a bow that was light enough for my girlfriend to shoot. She is scared to death of shooting a bow. Anyway, this one does shoot and she could probably shoot it without to much trouble.
Ok first question. Is White Ash a good wood for belly material? From what I'm seeing it probably isn't. I was getting some compression wrinkles on the belly while I was tillering it.
Next question. I read all over the place that the rule of thumb for a long bow is that the string should be 3 inches shorter that bow length. How do you get a good brace height with that?
Final question do you get a lot of string slap with a long bow with such a short brace height?
I'll try and post some pics in the future when I get them.
-
Well, the bow seems to be about what she could draw. so... the string, just wing it, i use my thumbs up method, if its too high i lower it, if its too low i raise it.(thumbs up is doing a thumbs up and placing the base of your fist on the bow handle and the thumb should touch the string.) over all i suggest getting a wrist guard for her since i have a high brace height bow and its got tons of string slap, yet with a bow with low brace height same thing happens to me. i think that i would have just made it all red oak if i were you, its not hard to do when its 3/4" thick. But in any case the bow is done, i think ash is a tension wood, i would have flipped the sides around because so far i have not seen oak have problems with compression at lower weights.