Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: make-n-break on March 11, 2016, 08:14:37 pm
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Here's the final product of the butt splice experiment. Started as a hickory 3/4" by 6" by 48" board. Ripped into two billets and butt spliced and dowel pegged at the handle. A 1" thick red oak handle riser and a 3/16 lam on the back supports the splice. Dowels go through everything except the lam.
Became 66" ttt... 3/8" uniform thickness limbs, 2.5 wide pyramid style tapering to 1/4" wide mini lever-ish tips. One limb is flat sawn and the other is rift sawn (just what the board happened to become after being cut in half). The arrow pass is leather with a built up leather shelf and a jute wrap soaked in tb3. The finish is 1 coat walnut stain and 4 coats spar urethane dulled with fine steel wool.
Started as 45@28, then heat tempered to 50@28 but final tiller and sanding brought it right back down to 45@28. The purpose of this bow is turkey hunting.
I prefer heavier bows so it's a little light for my taste. I know 40-45# is a deadly and trustworthy weapon, but after growing accustomed to 70-80# weapons it's going to take some getting used to.
It has some quirks. Immediately after shooting 100 arrows, the flat sawn (top) limb has 2-3/4" of follow and the rift sawn (bottom) limb took 1-3/8". They're from inches apart on the same board and treated exactly the same except a second heat treating was done to the top to try to reduce a little of the set. Maybe someone can enlighten me as to why that happened. Is it the different grain orientation?
Anyway, after some (a lot) of fooling with brace height I found 6-1/4" to shoot quite pleasant. Just finished turning a dozen Douglas fir shafts matched to this bow. Still gotta fletch em up. Enough nonsense.. Here are the pics.
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Profile.
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Profile.
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Full draw.
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Glad to see it all come together for ya! Looks great
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It turned out nice - good luck with the birds.
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I think it looks awesome. The pics are great too! :-)
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hell, i would totally rock that... nice job...
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Woo, that's very handsome, I do like a nice pyramid...
Now I suggest you take off that back lam over the grip and see if it explodes >:D ;)
Del ;D
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Great tiller.
The only thing I would change would be the tips you don't need any extra thickness there to stop them from bending. You could lose a good chunk of weight there and increase your speed. As you move along the limb from the handle fades to the tips the strain lowers. The tips have very little strain to content with and therefore need very little 'extra' thickness to stop them bending. Even on a full on molly type bow with longer levers an extra 1/16th will stop them bending.
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Thanks fellas. Del I think I'll let this one survive lol.. I was sweating bullets the whole time.
Mike, I might end up thinning them down. I got a little carried away with the thickness. I wanted to leave some extra because i cut down a little ways into the back with a chainsaw file for my string grooves. It spits an arrow pretty quick but I could see the thick tips preventing it from reaching full potential.
Here are the matched arrows. 11/32 Douglas fir with full-feather two fletch. I used to make my self nocks all pretty and shapely, but I lose and break so many arrows I gave up spending all that time. Nowadays just cut a quick nock with a tile saw, sand inside a little and call it good. This morning I'm putting together a little something for the arrow section showing my real simple router jig for turning lumber shafts
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Arra Artiste tooo! Looks good. Liking what you do with the thread at nock-end.
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I like the experiment. It shows there's more then one way to skin a cat. After seeing the results I'm thinking a guy could get buy with much smaller dowel if drilled at an angel from back and angled towards the tip as it enters the belly side. The force would drive the limb down tighter when braced and drawn. The weakness I believe would be the limb splitting at the dowel hole Small would help some I would think. I would like to see what abuse it can take. Nice work.
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I have had tje same happen with ax handle bows where two different grain orientation took different set between the limbs. Its happened enough that I would say its normal. Just take note of which one takes less set and use that grain when possible.
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Well you pulled it off
looks good
just wondering if the limbs are the exact width if not you may have your answer , sometimes a bit of difference in splice alingment will get you different angles out of the handle so the limbs look like differant amounts of set
all in all you got a bow from it so go enjoy it !
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Nice bow! I've never used hickory, wouldn't mind trying one day.
I don't have any luck wih self nock arrows that I hadn't put a bit of horn/hardwood in. Self nocks look great, but I use glue-on now because Im lazy and break so many arrows on tough stumps.
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Nice bow! I've never used hickory, wouldn't mind trying one day.
I don't have any luck wih self nock arrows that I hadn't put a bit of horn/hardwood in. Self nocks look great, but I use glue-on now because Im lazy and break so many arrows on tough stumps.
Stay way from tough stumps ;D
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Good looking bow, butt splice and all. Nice tiller=nice bow=nice work. :)
Arrows look great, too.
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Good looking bow and arrows. Nice work!