Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: make-n-break on March 01, 2016, 07:41:03 pm
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Has anyone had any experience or luck with lashing together two billets at the handle with no glue?
I have a hickory board with awesome grain that's 4 feet long, 3/4 thick, and 6 inches wide. I want to rip it in half and trim a little so I essentially have a 3 inch wide by 6 foot 'stave' to work with once spliced. I'm shooting for 50 +- pounds at 28". Pyramid style.
For the handle area, I would make the ends of both billets have a 4" handle, lay them on top of each other, shape them a little for comfort, and lash then together extremely tight with hemp. I have the equipment to make a traditional V or Z splice, but I really wanna try something different just for the sake of fun, unusualness, and experimentation.
I'm thinking it's going to be very difficult to make the transition from handle to fade to working limb. Advice? Abort mission?
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I can't remember his handle on here but there's a fuy here in Alaska that haa done some unique takedowns like that
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Bubby I think you might be referring to fiddler49. I've seen a couple of his unique bows, cable backed etc. Can't recall seeing his lashed take down.
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Yeah that is him make n break
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Fiddler uses bolts and lashing.
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He used dowels and lashing too Pat, I thought he did one just lashed
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Half eye, Rich, just posted examples of this kind of bow in the trade thread. It should be on page 110 about half way down. In his example the splice was reinforced with flat slats of leg bone on either side, then lashed together. It was considered a takedown and wasn't glued at all.
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He used dowels and lashing too Pat, I thought he did one just lashed
Yes. bolts to set it up and then replaced with dowels. Pretty sure there is a lashed only one but the dowels align everything a bit better I would think.
http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/54709/Alaskan-Molly-build-68-lbs-31-finished-pics
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Sounds like a neat project. Try it. Post pics. I'd go with 2" wide for a 50#er if it were me, assuming good hickory of course.
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Take down sleeve's are way easier. Than cut joints. I've made 3 Osage take down for people.
I saw a ways back someone talking about nuts and bolts. Come on holding a cut joint together. Not very primitive.
Couple Indians setting around the camp fire. Hay pass me the 9/16's.
I think some of you need to step back and rethink about your primitive trail backwards. And what you'd like to end up at the trails end.
I hope your trail never ends but sadly we all die at our trails end.
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How did you make those primitive take-down sleeves?
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How did you make those primitive take-down sleeves?
Yeah, please share those primitive takedown sleeves. I would like to see how they are done.
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Now that would be a neat project.
I bet it could be done with leg bone if one had the patience and precision.
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Now that would be a neat project.
I bet it could be done with leg bone if one had the patience and precision.
It's been done with rawhide and sinew but there is no museum evidence of those two Indians saying "hay, let's saw our bows in half with a string and sand and then join them back together".
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I don't think make-n-break was going for "primitive', just "something different just for the sake of fun, unusualness, and experimentation". That's OK with me at least.
Now you gotta make it even if you do break it :)
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Someone made a takedown sleeve out of rawhide and sinew? I was thinking to make a primitive sleeve consisting of two leg bones where one slid snugly into the hollow of the other.
The bow I was referring to that half eye posted is an intentional take down horn bow. It is old enough to be considered an artifact I'm sure, although made by Mongolians not Indians. As for the written transcript where the decision was made to create it, not sure about that one.
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Thanks for the link to fiddlers bow Pat. Gave me some inspiration but I think I'll go without the levers for my attempt.
As for the fully primitive thing.. as far as I'm concerned the Native Americans probably didn't have milled lumber, rasps, tape measures, table saws, or sandpaper, and I'm not about to work this hickory board with a flint chip! I do like to go full primitive once in a while, but even when I'm building from start to finish with one tool it's still a steel knife. I'm not up to the purist level yet.. I just like bending wood.
It was more just a fun experiment to make a lashed/glue free take down from lumber. I didn't have much time tonight but I did get my 2.5 inch by 36 inch billets ripped. And it's laid out. I'll get some pictures of the attempt. Not really a build along but more of a follow along. I'm going to try it without dowels. Just two limbs lashed tightly together. Still deciding on whether to use a riser piece or lash the two limbs directly to one another like fiddler. Should be entertaining!
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I do it all the time, except I usually just taper front to back and make a scarf joint. Sometime I just put a couple holes and bolt it together with flat head bolts, but sometimes I just pin it with dowels and wrap it with rawhide or cord. I'm in the middle of one right now made out of two ash shovel handles.
The hang-ups are this. The handle MUST be more than thick enough, with fades and dips that end far away from the splice, and a good bit into the limb. This is to avoid flexing the handle much where the grain is cut through on the underside splice. I put the splice mostly in the handle and wrap the heck out of it. I usually thin some Tb III just barely with water ad soak the hemp or linen cord in it before I wrap, so I goes down very smoothly, and I THINK it swells the cord, so it shrinks while it dries. Not much longitudinally, but some. When I'm done, it's hard and smooth, and sometimes, just like with sinew, I put it down in layers so it will dry properly. I have also wrapped it with baling wire, then wrapped sting and glue over that, or leather.
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Not sure if the intention was to have a take- down or not???
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Pat the original plan was to make a takedown, but my lunch break blueprints for the lashing-only idea leave me questioning durability and functionality. I think I might be overstepping my current skill level here, and I rarely come across a piece of hickory this pristine. I'd be a little sad if it broke. I'm considering abandoning the idea and just doing a billet splice, non-bending handle, glued and doweled.