Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: tom sawyer on December 11, 2007, 11:36:07 pm
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A friend contacted me a while ago, seems he knew a fellow named Jimmy who wanted to learn to make a bow. Jimmy already made his own arrows and did a fantastic job on them. He called me last night and arranged to come over tonight. I admit I forgot about him coming, but was glad to meet him.
We went to the garage and looked over a bunch of different kinds of bows and talked a little about what he wanted to make. He settled on an osage selfbow, he's shooting for 60lb@28". We rummaged through some staves and billets and found a nice set of 36" billets that had bark and sapwood removed and were seasoned two years. These billets are btter than any stave I have, and will give him a chance to make a splice. They have fairly tight growth rings (1/16" or so) and probably 75% summer growth. I showed him how to chase a ring and he went at it, got both billets chased nicely tonight. Pretty good for having never picked up a drawknife before. He does work construction though so he's no stranger to wood and tools. There's a little island of wood in the middle of one stave, it is a bit of a dip and rather than have him dig it out I thought we'd wait till the billets are sawed to shape.
I showed him how to lay out a bow, he drew a centerline down the crown of each billet and laid out a pattern that is 1.5" wide to midlimb, tapering to 1/2" tips. As you can see, one billet has a dogleg at the handle end, we laid out the pattern following the grain and I think we'll try to straighten that setion with heat. It'll be a challenge but I think it can be done. Might have to cut the section thinner than a handle if we can't get it straightened, and glue a handle piece under the splice. But I want to try straightening it first while its still thick enough to make a handle (1.5"). I also debated cheating in that area and just cutting it out straight, there's enough width that we could get away with it. There'd be a few inches of working limb and the fade that would have some runout of grain though. I think it would work but I'm going to try heat-bending instead. At worst I'll just dig out another billet and start from scratch. Anybody have an opinion on this?
Next week we'll cut it out, heat-bend it straight and give it some reflex. If that goes well, we'll maybe do the splice and glue it up. That'd be a good two hours worth of work I think.
I'm glad to be having a weekly bow night again. I'll keep you posted on Jimmy's progress. I think we can get this bow through tillering stage in maybe four sessions.
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He settled on an osage selfbow, he's shooting for 60lb228".
How many billets do yousplice together to get a bow with a draw length like that? ;D :D ;D :D I'm glad to see you doing this. I like a good buildalong, especially with a newbie. Justin
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Shouldn't type with my thumbs. Fixed the typo. It'd take about seven billets though. 7x36=252 - (6x4"splices) = 226", close enough.
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Nice of you to help out the new folks,I think sometimes I had rather do that than build my own.As far as cheating on the limb ,I try not to unless it is the ONLY thing I can do.I would heat and straighten.I usually on that new of wood, steam them first to get the worst out and then heat from there. :)
Pappy
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Thanks for the advice Pappy, thats what I was thinking. I think we'll try straightening it as 1.5" thick wood, and if that doesn't work we'll cut it down to 3/4" and bend again. I'm sure we can correct it at that thickness. Then we'll glue a handle on.
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W/ 36" billets, seems like you could shorten the dogleg billet and come out fine. How long do you need? I'd suggest 64" is plenty and down as low as 60" is within reason. Looks like you only need a few inches. Grain violation in the spliced area shouldn't be a big deal.
It's good to see you have a nice, generous side, evidently reserved for utter strangers. ;-)
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Tom Sawyer, as the Greeks say hen some one does something particularly good- Bravo! Jawge
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Once again shows the character of the folks around here. Sure wish I would have had an opportunity like that
last year when I started. Well done and can't wait to see the progress.
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David I was going to have him make it 68", figuring we could shorten it if necessary. But I guess we could cut off a few inches and just cheat within the splice/fades.
As for my generosity, I give to the needy not the greedy. Besides your standards are too high, I have nothing that would suit you.
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Don’t you just love bow nights? Having a heated garage/shop allows me to have four to five people over one night every week during the winter for what my wife calls “Bow Buddy Night”. I never get anything done on my personal bows, but never expected to when I started hosting these get-togethers. We all have a good time and I enjoy sharing/teaching what I have learned.
Like David, I would shorten the handle area until it is 64" nock to nock. Using it as the bottom limb would help even more, if you make your bottom limb shorter then the top one. If you start from the tip of that billet and lay it out to actual dimensions, including the splice layout (backwards from the method I normally use), it will give you the amount of extra wood in the twist/bend area you could safely cut off.
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I've been trying to heat a dog leg out of a recent osage bow for about 5 days now. It definately is bending nicely but I seem to go too far each time.
Think I finally have it so the string is in the middle of the handle....it was starting to drive me nuts!! ;)
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Second session, Jimmy got the billets cut out nicely. He already knew how to use a bandsaw so he did all the cutting. One of the billets was a little short on width for a handle so I had him cut them both about 3/4" thick and we'll splice then cap it to get the handle thickness we want. Kind of wish that wasn't necessary but it'll work out OK.
Anyway here are pics of the billets cut out, and that dogleg billet on the form. I'm letting it cool in place overnight, I'll give it a few more sessions as necesssary to get it ready for the next bow night which is goig to be Friday night. Hopefully we'll be ready to cut the splice and glue, possibly glue the handle piece on at the same time just to get to the heart of the project which is tillering.
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Kinda sporty profiling thos guys before splicing doncha think? I ain't that brave. good lookin wood Lennie...you da man!
R
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Bow night sounds fun. If you get a chance, take some good pics of the splicing process. I have a couple of 36' mullberry staves and I have no idea how I'm going to splice them.
Thanks
Otoe
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Hey Otoe 36 foot billets, lets see when ya splice em that will make a 72 foot bow, who's it for Paul Bunyan ;) ;D ;D
Typos can be fun hehehe
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The straightened billet and the pair. The closeup shows the piece we cut off that is laying under the straightened billet, just to show what one heat treatment can do. I'll tweak this billet (and the other which is basically straight) another time or two but its usable right as it is now.
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Roger, I did the heat straightening on the billet because the dogleg is on the handle side and I didn't want to heat treat a glued splice. I figured why not go ahead and put in the reflex. I don't think this will cause any big problems when cutting out the splice or gluing, having some reflex in the billets. My form has almost no reflex near the handle anyway.
We got lucky, the weather warmed up some and enough snow melted off the driveway that I could wheel the bandsaw outside to use it. It was cold but it kept the mess out of the garage. We have a 10' (thats foot not inch) patch of yellow snow out there now. Somebody's going to think we have a really big dog.
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I haven't spliced billets yet,what are you using for glue URAC? I also want to make a takedown, so many choices so little time
VB
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I believe I'll use resorcinol, about the same thing as URAC. Two part catalyzed glue with wood flour for enhanced gap-filling properties. Really I want to start making more billet bows, theres probably five times more wood that is clean for 36" as opposed to 66".
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Looking good.
I think Sparky was saying that by reducing the width profile, you've limited yourself on correcting tip misalignment in the splice. But there's 8 ways to skin a cat so no harm no foul. I generally leave billets extree generous in width till I get the splice finished. I have taken staves that would make a bow, and reduced them to billets to make a better bow. Easy way to take a stave that looks like C and turn it into an S.
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Well why didn't he say so? Good thing I have you to interpret. hehe
I see, so its good to leave the billets full width out to the tips until after you splice. I can see how that would be safer. This wood has taken a bend really well so I'll correct tip misalignments that way on this one. Now that you've got me worried, I'll also pay close attention to aligning the thing when I glue the splice. A little twist of the splice in either directtion and you can get a change in tip alignment and still have a reasonably tight joint fit.
You guys think of everything ahead of time. I think of everything after its too late.
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Straightened up the billets a bit with the saw, then laid out a 4" z-splice for a straight handle (not bulbous). I cut them out and sharpened the points with a rasp. I did it because its tough enough to saw them in daylight and at 40F, waiting until tonight would mean darkness and 20F. Plus I already had the mess made from trimming/thinning up the billets. Tonight when Jimmy comes over we'll glue them up with resorcinol. We'll probably glue a cap on the splice (next time) as the billets are only a little under an inch thick in the handle. Might be enough but he wants 60lb out of this baby so I don't want to take any chances.
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Glued it up last night. Next is to glue a handle piece, straighten it up one more time on the form, and then next time Jimmy comes over its time to rasp.
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One thing I forgot to mention on the splices, was that I tried to be careful about making the splices even as far as the two limbs being in the same plane and aligned. I did this by hand and eyeball but you could make a jig and it would be safer. When I was through cutting, I did have the bottom of my splice tips a wee bit thicker than the knife edge of the top. This didn't allow the pieces all the way into the joint so I simply used a rasp to narrow the thicker areas on those tips until the whole business fit to the full 4" depth. The limbs are aligned pretty well, although as Roger and David predicted I will have to heatgun the whole bow just a bit as the tips are just a little off (1/2", I can easily get this in line).
One more tip, I cut so that I'm removing most of my pencil lines on these splices. If you cut completely outside and leave the pencil lines, the pieces are a bit too thick to fit together properly and it takes more work to get them reduced with a rasp. I used a fairly thin blade, even so the kerf is slightly larger than the pencil line. I cut so that the pencil line just disappeared, meaning the blade was just a little outside the line but overlapping. That was clear as mud huh.
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Thanks for the post on the splice. Did you stack the two pieces to cut them at the same time or did you do them separately? I've got two 36" mullberry staves that I've got curing and even though I've read about splicing in the TBB, this sure helps to visualize the process.
You may have mentioned it and I missed it, but are you going to add a riser behind the splice?
Thanks for sharing.
Otoe
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I cut them separately, I suppose you could do both at once but it'd be a load on the saw. And I'll add a handle piece on this one just because it isn't quite thick enough, one of the billets was a little skinny so I cut them both to even thickness. I'll probably only need 1/2" piece on the inside to have enought thickness.
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Bow night was this afternoon as it turns out. Jimmy was anxious to make progress, and I'd glued a handle on the blank and straightened it another time so he would be ready for rasping to floor tiller. He came in, I gave him instruction on the use fo a rasp, and away he went. We marked lines down both sides and he rasped to a point midway on the belly, then removed all the crown down to a nearly flat surface. It is now floor tillered, he's coming this Tuesday afternoon to tiller his bow. I didn't get in-progress photos, just a few of the floor tillered bow. Even had the mess cleaned up before I took the pics, he made a fine pile of sawdust this afternoon. I'll do another round or two of straightening just to tweak the profile a bit, its straight enough now and just needs little more of a nice sweeping reflex. The bow is going to be a nice one if we make weight. He wants 60lb, I'll be happy with anything over 50.
I also split the last two pieces of that hedge post I bought, cut them all to length and shellac-ed the ends. There's eight decent 6' splits in the driveway now. So I kept pretty busy today.
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Tweaked the reflex on the blank earleir today, got a nice sweeping 2" to start with. Jimmy came over and pretty much tillered the bow in about 3 hours. We had a slightly skinny spot near one handle that determined the poundage, which ended up at about 50lb@28". We'll cut off an inch or so from each end, and heat treat the belly to give him as much poundage as possible. In any case, he did a good job and ended up with nearly an inch of reflex right after unstringing. I'm sure we'll lose that with shooting in but its a good result as far as I'm concerned. He has a good touch with the rasp, and caught on quick to my suggestions on how to proceed. The bow is in the hot box now, drying out in preparation for next session. We'll pike the bow, shape the handle and tips, then sand, then heat temper the belly and shoot it in. I'll probably have him finish it at home, then we'll put a leather handle wrap on it and take some final photos. He's going to hunt with it next year.
Here's a pic of Jimmy using the Ultimate Bowyers Rasp (Torges' custom rasp), a tiller tree shot, Jimmy drawing the bow to about 28", and a just-unstrung side profile shot.
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Oh and if you see something obvious wrong with the tiller, feel free to speak up. We can still make changes at this point although we are running out of poundage to give. The tiller tree shot is a little off-center, he was pulling while I was photo-ing. From having the yard-stick sitting on the bow on the tree, I can see that we are getting some slight movement right to the fades. And the bow is taking set in a uniform and minimal way, so I think we have a decent tiller so far. Thanks in advance for any advice.
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Looks to me like yall did a fine job on the tillering, and the bow is still holding some reflex. ;)
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Lennie, I'm liking it. Very nice job of documenting the journey. It really helps to see it. Danny
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Looks good Lennie. Thanks for the build along, and you get extra credit for bringing a newbie to the craft.
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Great job Lennie and Jimmy, so how do you like the rasp?
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The UBR rasp continues to be my favorite. The coarse side removes wood FAST, and the finer side is still pretty aggressive but it smooths things up better.
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Looking good Lennie,you have yall have came along way in a couple of weeks.tiller looks for from what I can see.I bet he is happy,and hooked. ;D
Pappy
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Tom
What are the dimensions of the Bow and how thick were the billets at the splice before gluing on the handle piece? What weight did you get?
wvflintknapper
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Yep, Jimmy is hooked. He's already talking about making another bow.
I cut the billets down to a little under an inch thick before making the splice. Might have been 3/4" or just a bit thicker. Then we glued another 3/4" on that, which may or may not get thinned. I really don't like any more handle thickness than I have to have, but its up to Jimmy to decide about this. The 3/4" thickness of the billets at the splice means the handle piece doesn't extend out much into the fades and certainly not past them, so there should be no issues with the handle piece popping off.
The bow itself is still 68" tip-tip, 1.5" to mid-limb, 4" handle and 2" fades.
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Got some fine work done tonight. Jimmy shaped the handle and fades to his liking, then gave the bow a bit of sanding. We decided not to pike it. I made a string for it and we shot it a few times in the garage. Shoots real nice. I didn't know Jimmy shoots three-under, seems like the tiller is about right though. Its definitely a righty bow, the string tracks just about down the left side of the handle. He's going to shoot it in this week, then if its stable he's going to finish it with a few coats of tung oil. We'll make a leather handle next week and that'll be it. Its getting close.
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Nice job Lennie,Love it when a guys first bow turnes out,wished I had that kind of help when I started.Way to go. :)
Pappy
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Yeah it would have been nice to be handed a piece of hedge right off the bat without having to pay $100+ (which I would never do as I am so cheap).
Now I have to figure out how to get Jimmy into some of his own wood. I might see about procuring a log or two that we can share so he has wood for the future. Probably some hedge and maybe a hickory as well. And I'll be introducing him to the good old red oak board bow for his next project. Those let you practice your skills on a budget.
Not that I don't have enough wood to keep us both busy for years. But I think getting your own wood stock is a big part of the fun of this craft.
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I agree Lennie on the woodstock, plus going out and harvesting it and bringing it home and splitting it is all a part of the fun. I think at least. I find myself examining every tree i see now to see if there is good bow wood in it. Lol Danny
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Yep there's lust in my heart every time I drive to visit my in-laws, several hedgerows along that route. You could call me the Jimmy Carter of bow wood.
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Jimmy shot the bow last week, had problems with arrow spine because his arrows are made for his 60lb Black Widow recurve. We heat-treated the belly last session, not a deep cook but a light toasty brown. after it cooled, we strung it up and measured the poundage. Looks like around 47lb@28", less than he was shooting for but enough for a hunting bow and a good first effort. I kind of figured we would miss weight when he got that one place a little thin on the floor tillering stage. The bow has good early weight though and has good manners. We could pike it but we both think it is best to leave it alone at this point. He wants to put snakeskins on it, might get to that this weekend.
Got a pic of Jimmy heatgunning the bow, and another of the side profile after shooting it this week. It retained an inch of reflex. This tells me its somewhat overbuilt for the poundage and draw, since we only started out with 2" of reflex. All in all, its a darned nice bow. Looks like Jimmy has the knack for this stuff.
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Real nice progress, Love that unbraced profile.
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OK first the good news. Jimmy called today and came over to work on his bow. He wanted to put on the snakeskins and also he changed his mind and decided to pike the bow to get more poundage. So first he cut about 1.5" off each end to make the bow about 64" n/n. He shaped the tips and strung it and checked the weight. Wow, the bow went from 47lb to 60lb, just what he was looking for. I was pretty surprised we got this much of an increase but I figure piking will make more of a difference when you start off with a pretty long bow. There's a photo of him near full draw below. Looked like it was bending pretty smooth still.
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I don't wanna hear the bad news :(
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That is a pretty bow. You did a great job teaching. That is a huge jump in weight. Justin
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Now for the bad news. After resetting the brace on his string, he pulled the bow a few times and we heard a "tick" sound. Never a good sound for a bowyer. I checked the bow over and couldn't find anything wrong with it, but I put it on the tiller tree just to be safe. After a few pulls, BAM the bow let go in the inner third of one limb. I have a couple of pics, one of the broken bow and a closeup of the break.
In doing the autopsy, I think there are two things that contributed to the bow breaking.
One was the fact that there was a bark inclusion a couple inches inside the break that we left a little thick. It was just outside the fades and should have been bending there, I thought we had a little bend but maybe not. When the bow was 67" n/n I think we still had enough limb without this few inches of limb.
The second weakness, was something I did wrong. When I was heat-bending the one billet to get rid of the dogleg, I accidentally scorched the back of the wood a bit in one spot. You guessed it, the spot was right where the bow broke. I've had trouble before, having the heat wrap around the blank when it is on the form and cause the back to get a little brown. I had worried about the spot initially, but as we went through tillering I figured it was OK. Apparently not OK when you have 60lb of stress on that short a limb.
What I think happened, was that the browned area became somewhat brittle and popped when subjected to the combined stress of a 60lb bow with a limb that was not only short but even shorter due to the thick spot in the inner limb. If you look at the closeup of the break, you can see a few short breaks running perendicular to the length of the limb, right in the region that was the most scorched.
Needless to say, I was pretty bummed about this. Jimmy took it in stride, he's an easygoing guy thank goodness. We are getting together again on Tuesday to regroup and start another project.
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By the way, I've had the problem of heat running around the blank on my form before. How can I prevent this? You think I'm holding the gun too close? I know the heat is going on the under side of the blank along the bottom piece of the form, hitting the curved part of the form and scorching the back. I've had it happen more than once, haven't had a failure due to it though. I'm tempted to start doing my heating before clamping the bow on a form, or not using a base board under my curved form so there is no way for the heat to get trapped and funneled to the back of the bow. I don't know, Gary Davis does it this way and I don't think he has this problem.
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wonder if you could mould some tinfoil to the back in order to protect it?
Lenny I've scorched the back of a few white wood bows doing the same thing.
Sorry to here about the breakage but at least he took it in stride.
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How close do you hold the heat gun? I hold it about 4-6" so's not to scorch too much.
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Do you hold the gun or put it on a clamp or something? I have had that happen when I had something holding the gun beside my hand. Keep moving it up and down the limb. Crisco also helps to keep from drying out to much and scorching. Justin
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That may be it, I hold the gun within an inch or two from the wood most of the time. Guess I'm getting in too big of a hurry. I feel worse because its not my bow.
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As sorry I am for you guys breaking it, I am grateful to have the oportunity to learn from it as well. I guess it even happens to those with experience. God Speed on the next one guys. Danny
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I hold the gun 4 or 5 inches from the wood and always keep it moving,I have scorched some a little but never really had a problem that I knew it caused,and you are right Gary dose it all the time and I have seen some of his scorched pretty good.Sorry about the failure,I'm with you it is worse when it is someone else's. :)
Pappy