Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Marc St Louis on March 08, 2016, 05:39:27 pm
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I was contacted a couple months ago by a member here that wanted me to make him a bow just like the one in this thread http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=5611.msg77588#msg77588. This was a bow I had made years ago out of Elm for flight shooting and had re-done it a few years ago by shortening it and re-tillering the bow. The only difference is he wanted the bow a bit longer and to pull between 65 and 70 lbs. The original bow that I had made years ago was made out of Elm and I guess that stuck in my head so I pulled out one of the better Elm stave I had and made the bow. I tillered the bow out and applied the finish, here is a picture of the bow.
(https://i.imgur.com/sQ0xFUd.jpg)
Then I reviewed his e-mail and saw that he wanted the bow out of HHB, crap. Back to the drawing board.
I pulled out some HHB I had cut a few years ago, very nice wood and clean, and set to work. Between hauling out my firewood and other things to do I finally finished the bow a few days ago. Now with the Elm I had a bit of a hard time making weight with the bow coming out at the lower end of what he wanted but it was the opposite with the Ironwood. Specs are, 62" long with shallow D section limbs 1 5/8" wide. I kept the center of the bow fairly stiff with it working only a small amount. The draw weight is a bit much for me, it pulls 70# @ 27", and I can't quite get it to full draw in the picture. String tension is quite high and a FF string will be necessary for this bow. Here's a few pics
(https://i.imgur.com/7sY2Bpx.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/GHahBLV.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/I7IyPSr.jpg)
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Your full draws are picture perfect......
DBar
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Really like simplicity & strait foward design Beautiful bow !
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whew that nice,, congrats on such a nice bow,, should make the new owner more than happy,, I love those bows that have such a Native look to them,, thanks for sharing
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Thanks guys.
It pulls about 75# @ 28" but it is pretty dry in my shop right now. I suspect that this bow is going to be used on Moose since Nate lives in Moose country
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Really nice. Twin sons of different mothers. ;D
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Them moose are in trouble😉
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Those both look great, I really like those little flipped tips
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Glad it's not just me that miss-reads E-mails! :laugh:
Nice work of course!
Del
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Very nice work, love that HHB.
Pappy
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Wow, that's a lot of draw weight from that bow. Good work Marc.
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You always seem to get your bows bending so smoothly, nice work all around on this one.
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Great bows Marc, what are your nock overlays
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That's a nice bow love the finish on it.
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Marc,
what strikes me in many of your bows is that they have so little width change throughout the entire working section. They only start to narrow markedly towards the tips. That means there's still a lot of mass in the outer limbs, which I'd think is pretty detrimental to speed, and yet you build about the fastest self bows.
Compared to my bows, your bows retain the heat-treated reflex in the outer limbs very well most of the time. Heat-treated pyramids with narrow outer limbs (narrow for high dry fire speed) tend to lose most of the heat-treated reflex I put in.
So my question: do you think your bows retain the reflex so well because the limbs stay so wide, and hence the strain is so well distributed over a wider area. The cost of extra mass clearly outweighing the gained benefits from the retained reflex?
thanks for your thoughts
Joachim
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Thanks guys.
I picked up a box of mixed tropical off cuts a few years ago from a place in Ottawa so I'm not quite sure what it might be but I think the overlays are Bocote.
This bow is pretty short Joachim and even though it is a D bow the handle area hardly bends which is one of the reasons for keeping the limbs wide for most of their length. If you are losing reflex in the outer limbs then they are most likely working too hard there. Remember this is not a flight bow so dry fire speed does not come into play. If the bow was 6" longer then the width of the limbs would probably affect performance but they would be less strained so would have kept more reflex, I heat-treated about 6" of reflex into this bow and it kept about 2".
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Elegance, Marc. That full draw is exemplary.
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joachim, those are good ideas, questions, and considerations, but let me tell you the real secret. Marc is simply a MASTER at tiller. And that's the truth. Like Kurt Russell in "Big Trouble let in Little China" Marc can "see things no one else can see, do things no one else can do".
This bow is high draw weight, fairly narrow (though it retains it's width out the limb, as you said) and only 62" long or so, so tip weight is less of a problem IN THIS PARTICULAR BOW. But, did you notice how Marc made TWO almost identical bows, aside from a few lbs draw weight from two different woods? LIKE IT WAS NOTHING!? To me, that's almost the same as magic. Their strung and unstrung profiles are literally so close that you could superimpose them and the only difference would be any knots or bumps. The knowledge of where to be d, and how much, and the different width and thickness needs for each wood, and the subtle understanding of how to make one part bend JUST slightly more or less, and the eye that takes on the tiller tree...... that's simply high skill.
Now, I have successfully made well over a hundred bows at this point, and started many, many more that I pushed and learned on until they broke, but if I started out with two good clean staves to make two almost identical bows, I almost couldn't do it. The draw weights, or the amount of that tiny tip reflex he gives each one, or something would be different.
It sounds like I'm just brown - nosing Marc, but all I am really saying is that DESIGN and TILLER still rule. Nothing will co.pensate. And, I'm STILL training my eye, after almost 18 years of this.
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Thanks guys
Even though the stave was very clean with no knots the bow was a bit more difficult to tiller than the Elm. This is because the back had some undulations which made the back highly domed in some places and almost flat in others and this carried out to the edges. This gave an almost scalloped look to the edge of the limbs in some places. The wood was excellent though and the back ring was nice and thick, for HHB.