Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: bow101 on January 03, 2013, 05:13:52 pm
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I see many~many twisted staves here and all over the WWW. Now tell me what kind of bow do you end up with, having twisted limbs. Many limbs cannot be ironed out with all the knots and holes.!!!
Do Twisted Stave bows shoot well..?
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They shoot as good as any other bow if the bowyer does his/her job right. I personally wouldnt waste my time with a piece of wood that wont make a great hunting bow. Its what I do, its what I love and its why I build bows and arrows.
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With patience and a decent heat gun, a 6 ft osage stave will give up over 100 degrees of twist. I've done it with some pretty ugly mulberry, too. There may be parts of the stave riddled with pin knots or a dead knot that you should leave the heck alone....you gotta learn to pick your battles.
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...you gotta learn to pick your battles.
Truer words have never been spoken.
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You can rough out the bow twisted. Put the handle in a vice and put either a wrench or a clamp on the nock end. Hang some weight off of the clamp or wrench. I support the limb with a broken golf club so it doesn't sag. Start near the vice with slow and gradual heat. Once it is hot enough you will see the end start to untwist. I usually heat around a third of the limb at a time working my way from the handle to the tip.
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My best bow is named 'Twister' :).
It just takes some care in the tillering to make sure it tracks back straight keep extra tip width to start width to allow plenty of adjus ment to help fight the twist and find the right alignment.
.Not really the sort of thing you can do without a fair bit of experience under your belt. Buton the other hand, the only way you'll get the experience is by tryingit!
Making bows has almost limitless variety, if we just stuck to dead straight even timber of one species we'd all go crazy, mind we're pretty crazy already.
Del
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mind we're pretty crazy already.
Del
Speak for yourself, Mr the Cat. I asked all the voices in my head and every last one of them said we are as sane as anyone. Now excuse me, I need to polish my aluminum foil hat.