Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Del the cat on September 28, 2012, 05:51:52 am
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I haven't posted a bow for a while, I've made a couple of nice primitives, fairly similar, one Hazel, one Maple.
Now I know you guys like a nice long back story before the pics >:D... so.
Long long ago in a woodland just over the road I spotted a big Oak which had blown down in a storm and taken a Maple with it.
A nice length of the Maple split in two somehow ended up in my garage ;D.
Then, a few weeks back a young lad came over with his dad to talk about making longbows bows and history, so I let him split the worse half of the Maple, he enjoyed it as he'd never done anything like that before as he lives in the big city of London where they don't have woods, but they have cars and trains that go under the ground :o and the pavements are paved with gold ::).
So anyway I made it into bow...
As it was a fairly decent diameter I managed to use the underbark surface as the back with no decrowning for a nice change.
It's got some lovely twists and swoops, the upper limb tip has a real quirky wiggle which I was tempted to cut off, but wanted to keep maximum length. The target was 45-55# at 28" but as it's only 62" tip to tip I went for 50#.
it's actually about 48, but pulls to 50# at 29" which gives some safety margin.
There is very little set, with the belly side tips against a wall I can just about get my little finger between grip and wall, which is pretty good, (I usually expect to get two fingers)
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/billets-1.jpg)
Below a pic taken outside Hertford Town Hall where they have two rather fine Deer sculptures.
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/withdeer.jpg)
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/unbraced.jpg)
Here's the swoopy deflex tip, it's a design feature to equalise the string angles between the limbs compensating for their differing lengths (Oh, my pants have just spontaneously ignited ::))
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/swoopytip.jpg)
Some lovely Maple figre on the belly side of that tip...
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/maplefigure.jpg)
Her's the back of the bow at that tip, the guy I made it for wanted self pin nocks (I think 'shoulder' nocks is a good description), otherwise I'd have gone a bit thinner at the tip and done an overlay.
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/Backofswoop.jpg)
The grip is pretty minimalist and overflows into the fades a fair bit, I was careful to keep a close eye on the limb thickness as I was adjusting the grip for comfort and made sure I didn't push it too far.
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/grip-1.jpg)
Oh and I s'pose you want to see it at full draw?
This time I went for a more elliptical tiller following all the discussion we've been having, I haven't shot it through the chrono yet, but I know it's pretty quick for 50# as it shot 12 yards past our 180 yard marker, slighly uphill.
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/Maplefulldraw.jpg)
During the build it had a little steam bending and couple of doses of heat treatment, full build along on my blog starting here...
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/maple-primitive.html
(Oh, and before ayone comments on that last pic... it's my camera bag, not a cod piece! ;D )
Del
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Nice looking bow from what looks like a very challenging piece of wood. :) Good job on that one. :)
Pappy
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Very nice bow, that upper tip is something to behold 8). There's a nicely liquid look to the wood and the entire bow.
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Looks great dell.
Any idea what .sp of maple it was?
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Looks great dell.
Any idea what .sp of maple it was?
Nope, no idea what sort of Maple...
this is how it looked when I dragged it out of the woods, with a couple of Hawthorn Sticks too.
(http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/pp195/Del_the_Cat/logs.jpg)
Nearest thing I could find on the internet was Field Maple which looked about right, but I really don't know... I think even the botanists have troulbe IDing trees. If you're really really interested I could go and take pics of leaves. bark etc.
There's another 3 bows in there still :)
Del
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Nicely done Del, that bow has some nice character and the wood grain is very attractive also. Bend looks smooth and to shoot an arrow
that distance it must be a good performer. Don't seem to see many maple bows on here, thanks for posting this one.
Greg
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Very nice bow, maple can be beautiful wood...like the wagon idea too.
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Very nice bow Del. Great story too. Glad you caught me as I was just getting ready to comment on your makeshift loincloth ;D
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Cool lookin' bow Del. Like it a lot.
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Very well done there Mr. cat, like the bow and your log cart is brilliant, sir.
rich
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Nice job, Dell. I'm beginning to really like the elliptical tiller on some bows, for sure! 8)
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Love it! Maple is one of the woods that i'd like to get to know well in the near future. Love that deer prop too!
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Damn!
I was just wiping on some more Danish Oil when I noticed a couple of tiny chrysals about 8" down on the upper limb (in the area at the bottom of the 4th pic down in the original post) >:(
It's had about 100 arrows through it... anyhow, I've re-tillered it a hint to make it a little more circular and take some load off the tips. I've only lost a pound or two max, but I thought better safe than sorry.
The chrysals weren't there before but I'd just done an over draw test to 29" maybe it was just too much.
Anyhow it fuels the eliptical vs circular debate, as obviously too eliptical can overstress the tips just as circular can over stress the inner limb.
Gott admit I'm favouring maybe just a hint of elliptical, but I have a suspicion that circular is safer.
Dunno what's up with me I've had a couple of issues with may last two bow... I s'pose maybe we're all a bit too perfectionist at times?
Del
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very nice indeed, can't wait to meet it in the flesh and run it through your chrono.
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Sorry to hear about those chrysals, Del. Very nice looking bow and beautiful wood.
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Nice bow and nice log car. Looks much easier than the way I usually carry them out (on the shoulder). :o
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Nice blog and build Del!!
Very good looking bow from a tough piece of wood. Did you inlay that strike plate or am I seeing things?
Every time I approach a round tiller I end up whip tillered but looks like yours is working for you.
I like it!!
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Looks like a nice straight bit of wood that mate.
I hear your pain on chrystals my last elm and ash bows both started showing them near completion. :(
Wonder if the humidity could be a culprit. Must not have been below 80% for months now.
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Nice blog and build Del!!
Very good looking bow from a tough piece of wood. Did you inlay that strike plate or am I seeing things?
Every time I approach a round tiller I end up whip tillered but looks like yours is working for you.
I like it!!
Yup thats a Waterbuffalo horn arrow plate inlaid there.
Del
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Del, I think the idea with elyptical or circular is to try and equal out the stresses on the limb as much as possible. If the outer limb is bending more it needs to be a bit wider and thinner. Great looking bow.
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Great looking bow.
Gordon
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nice work del it looks great.
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Del, I think the idea with elyptical or circular is to try and equal out the stresses on the limb as much as possible. If the outer limb is bending more it needs to be a bit wider and thinner. Great looking bow.
Yup, I get that, but the tricky question is how eliptical? A circle is pretty absolute (although I s'pose you can change the radius) but 'eliptical' is almost meaningless as you can vary both axes and the amount of the arc so it's hard to get any meaningful help from the term...
Maybe it's all just down to 'eye' but I feel I know where I am with an arc of a circle.
I might cut out some different elipses and see how they look.
Is there some arc of magic ellipse which is ideal? (maybe some ratio of major axis to minor axis)
Come to think of it, I'm probably happier if it's all down to eye, I'm not sure we can analyise our art and turn it into just numbers ;D
Del
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Sweet bow Del, I like it a lot!
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Looks really nice! Personally i think some of the nicest of bows are the simplest...let the beauty shine from the bend... nice work ;D
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Cod piece :laugh: ??? :laugh: I really enjoy the grain and the character of that piece of wood!
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Nice" organic" lines. Those curves give it a life of it's own.
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that is a lovely bow..we have lots of maple in western oregon..i should give it a try some time..thanks for sharing..john
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I like the character tip a lot. Nice story! The tiller maybe a bit whipped more than elliptical? I think it's the same Maple I got here, it needed to be pretty wide (low density wood) if I remembered it right.
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Thanks for the comments guys.
I was feelin' a bit down yesterday with a dose of man flu and those damn chrysals... bit more back to my usual cheery self today.
It'll be interesing to make another one from the better half of the log and see how it turns out.
I might shoot it through the chono later on.
Just shot it through the chrono.
155 typical from my usual draw. Using the full 28" of the arrow I was getting 160
highest 166 fps ;D
Those chrysals are driving me nuts, I might do a thread whipping to hide the damn things so I don't start having nightmares about them.
That reminds me... I had a weird dream this morning (that's what happens with a cold...) I was back at my parents house and my Mum had reorganised the garden shed with all my bows in it and I couldn't find any of my fave's... woke up in a cold sweat... but boy you should have seen some of the weird and wonderful bows I did find... one was like a corkscrew :o
Del
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That's a great looking bow Del! I always like you work, and your humor ;)
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I like the bow and your little cart with Ductape, and you guys call us Rednecks ::) :D. I'd shoot the bow, chrysals and all till it broke. Personnaly I'm not wrapping anything. To me that's hiding a lesson learned and it looks ugly, and the first thing someone that knows bows will ask is, " is it cracked under there"? ::)
Make another one from the other half and see if it does it again. Maybe a little wider on the limb?
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I like the bow and your little cart with Ductape, and you guys call us Rednecks ::) :D. I'd shoot the bow, chrysals and all till it broke. Personnaly I'm not wrapping anything. To me that's hiding a lesson learned and it looks ugly, and the first thing someone that knows bows will ask is, " is it cracked under there"? ::)
Make another one from the other half and see if it does it again. Maybe a little wider on the limb?
1. Ductape! How dare you! :o
That's finest quality rubber strapping to tie the log on. ::) It's cut from the finest quality offcuts of EPDM roofing sheet.
2. I fully agree with you and I've alread roughed out the replacement bow from the better half of the log (which will only be giving me 2 bows plus a load of 'useful' off cuts that I'll never get round to using). It will be interesting to compare the tiller and performance of the two bows.
Although, the new one won't have so many swoops dips and tiny knots which may have been contributory to the problem.
E.G If you leave two bunches of knots (or sharp bends) slightly stiff then by deffinition there is a slightly weak point between them.
A wrapping wouldn't be to hide it. It would be to strengthen it, but only if the chrysals were in one small area. Same way as if you break your arm, the Doc puts a cast on, not to stop you seeing it, but to offer support.
I've had a lengthy discussion with someone (hi Mike ;) ) about if an epoxy soaked binding actually does anything and we had to agree to differ (or fight or get drunk whichever was more convenient ;) )
Del
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Del - i'd be happy to have a few beers and discuss things in person. I'm sure it would be enjoyable!
If you want to fix that bow then you could always grind the section out and replace with one of those useful offcuts. Have a look on Dean Torges website - there is a page on how to do these properly. It's the only way I would use. You know my thoughts on wrapping..... :(
On a constructive note I would say that you were maybe a little to fixated on the elliptical thing with this bow? In the full draw pic it looks like the mid limb isn't doing enough bending.
Remember that if a piece of wood chyrsals then it was simply being asked to bend too far.
I get what you are saying about the word elliptical being a little vague compared to circular.
It comes down to the longer the parallel width section is the more elliptical the tiller should be.
The golden rule being that the thinner the limb gets the further it can and should be bending.
I don't thiunk it's a field maple as the bark is wrong.
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Cheers,
Yeah it would be great to have a beer sometime if we get a close enough.
I'm already working on the mkII as I recognise that mkI isn't up to scratch.
Hopefully I'l have learned a bit more about non circular tillering.
Never tried a belly patch, have to have a go sometime... This particular bow is a bit too undulating in the area in question
Del