Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: sleek on June 16, 2015, 05:19:42 pm
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Im changing gears here with my bow making. I need a different wood than osage to do what I want. A buddy recommends vine maple. What say yall with other suggestions?
I want stiff handle bows, going to deflex them even if I need to do it with billets, short, around 55", shooting for average of 45#@28, deflex reflex design with tips set far enough back to look like about 2" set but they are recurved. Tips dont need to be static but slightly working.
Heres where it gets complicated. I need the bow to be deep and a rounded belly is preferred but not a must. How rounded? Slightly but more is better. The deeper the bow can be and remain sideways stable the better. Id like it to be no more than 1.5" wide at most.
What magical wood can do this? Im thinking elm as for wood I have personal experience with. Any other yall know about would be great!
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Heres where it gets complicated. I need the bow to be deep and a rounded belly is preferred but not a must. How rounded? Slightly but more is better. The deeper the bow can be and remain sideways stable the better. Id like it to be no more than 1.5" wide at most.
Can we ask why??
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Yew would be my first choice, osage my second and elm third. Not much differerence in how thick a piece of wood can be for a given radius that it will bend into. You can work a thick piece into a tight bend sometimes gradually and kind of rubberize it but they are doggy. I did some experiemnts over the last few years with extra wide, super flat thin limbs and I was really pleaseantly surprised at how they reacted. mass was often the same or less than I would have gotten on much narrower thicker bows.
Reflex deflex bows also have issues with torquing, they don't have to be super wide but they don't tolerate limb sections like elbs very well. If you use the no set method of tillering you can monitor the condition of the wood as you go. It will tell you when to stop. No matter how we would like to build a bow the limitations of the wood will keep us in line with reality. I have had more than my share of reality checks so I am not being a wise arse LOL.
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I'm far from experienced enough to know, but I feel like the stave will lead you into a bow design that fits it. Like how Michealangelo found the carvings/statue inside the raw marble, find the bow inside the stave. Don't be stubborn and force a design on a bow that can't handle it.
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Juniper.
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Yew would be my first choice, osage my second and elm third. Not much differerence in how thick a piece of wood can be for a given radius that it will bend into. You can work a thick piece into a tight bend sometimes gradually and kind of rubberize it but they are doggy. I did some experiemnts over the last few years with extra wide, super flat thin limbs and I was really pleaseantly surprised at how they reacted. mass was often the same or less than I would have gotten on much narrower thicker bows.
Reflex deflex bows also have issues with torquing, they don't have to be super wide but they don't tolerate limb sections like elbs very well. If you use the no set method of tillering you can monitor the condition of the wood as you go. It will tell you when to stop. No matter how we would like to build a bow the limitations of the wood will keep us in line with reality. I have had more than my share of reality checks so I am not being a wise arse LOL.
Im going to deflex the handle and then reflex mid limb to the tips. Is that how you were understanding me?
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Sooo sleek, are you going Mark st Louis on us >:D
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Maybe? I dont understand the reference though? Whats he done?
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Sticking to your width and no more osage or yew and nothing else is worth trying ...anything else will have a much higher failure rate,or being a over stressed out beaten dog. If you can be OK with more width then the possibilities open up to some more woods such as hickory,elm,hophornbeam,and even black locust,or sinewed juniper... But even then I wouldn't be using any flawed,knotty,twisty, character wood...it wood have to be primo 98%+ clean and straight wood for me to even want to attempt that with any kind of wood. This is all coming from experience in pushing the envelop with high stressed to the max designs with countless types of wood. And like badger I have had more than my fair share of reality checks in doing so.
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Heres where it gets complicated. I need the bow to be deep and a rounded belly is preferred but not a must. How rounded? Slightly but more is better. The deeper the bow can be and remain sideways stable the better. Id like it to be no more than 1.5" wide at most.
Can we ask why??
I just have an inspiration to build this specific bow. Thats all. A mental image id like to see come to be. Nothing more.
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I think you can do it with the right piece of Elm but you'll probably have to get a fair bit of it to find that piece.
Have you seen this bow? Seems like the type of bow that would grab your imagination.
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=48433.0
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That is almost the exact unbraced profile im wanting. Only I want more deflex in the limb. I want the tips to be set about 2" towards the belly.
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You can go pretty narrow with dense plum. Yew would be my first choice also. Oceanspray and xine maple can be relatively narrow, but tend to come from small diameter trees and so they'll typically have high crowns.
Gabe
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Yew, sage, blackthorn.
Yew is my primo choice for anything narrow and deep.
Why do you want to make it like this? May I suggest you want the tips level with the handle, two inches of deflex, unstrung, will just give you very poor string tension at brace.
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http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,38697.msg517454.html#msg517454
Do you mean something like this one? Just narrower?
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It's all been pretty much said.
Regarding depth to width, 3:4 is probably a realistic aim. Virtually all English longbow definitions are 5:8 as the flattest which is pretty flat.
You can go right up to depth the same as the thickness, (the rounding on the belly corners helping to make sure it bends the right way). but it will be V twitchy trying to go sideways.
Del
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I'd try Buckthorn. Bob
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That is almost the exact unbraced profile im wanting. Only I want more deflex in the limb. I want the tips to be set about 2" towards the belly.
That will probably happen naturally.