Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Muskyman on March 16, 2025, 05:53:41 pm
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Just in the beginning of trying to make an English longbow. Started out with a pretty good piece of Osage. Only been working on it a couple days. First thing I found out is that making the D shape isn’t easy. I went down easy limb with a contour gauge and have it working my way, but still have some shaping to get done. The stave is 75 inches long and about 1-1/8 wide at the handle.
Lots to do yet and if anyone has any tips or advice I’m all ears.
Also if anyone has any place to get some cow horn tips for a decent price. Looked a while back and they were pretty pricey
First pic is the stave I started with. And of course where I am now.
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Good looking stave, looks like you are making some good head way. :) Looking forward to seeing it all finished up. :)
Pappy
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Looks great so far. D sections can be tricky, if you start to get lateral bend. If the limb bends sideways , remove wood from the opposite side of the belly to correct the twist.
I usually put the horn nocks on when the bow is at full brace height and bending about 20-22" on the tillering tree. I do this because by this stage you should have sorted out any potential problems with twist, string alignment and narrowed tips. I prefer tillering to full draw with the nocks on rather than adding them after, as small inconsistencies can change the tiller. These days I use a small taper reamer from Veritas/ Lee valley, to form the tapered hole. Before the reamer I use regular drill bits to remove most of the waste.
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Don't worry about a 'D' section, an 'inflated rectangle' is maybe a better description. You don't want the belly dead flat, by a gentle curve in fine. You'll want it a bit fatter and rounded at the grip to make it comfortable.
I did a youtube video showing the cross section of one of mine:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHKuYeP7aTY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHKuYeP7aTY)
The picture is of cross sections of a Mary Rose bow.
Del
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Thanks for the advice guys. It’s my first go at the ELB so I’m expecting a learning curve. This stave has about 1 1/2 inch natural reflex in it. It’s at floor tiller right now and I’m hoping to make a bow out of it. I wanted to try one or two before I tried it on a really nice yew stave I’ve got. I’ll post more pictures when I get a little more done..
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Starting to bend it some. Need to catch the left limb up to the right. Looking like the left limb is stiffer for the last 2/3rds. The right one looks a little flat on the last 1/3rd maybe.
Here it is at rest and then with a little pull on it. I’m needing to find some horn for it. About the only place I’ve found so far is in Germany. Probably put some tips on it once I get it bending about the same at about brace height..
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Plenty of raw horn for tips on Ebay.
Stave looks good so far. Looks like you are going for a stiff handle, with dips? How deep is the handle?
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Not really sure how a ELB is supposed to look in the handle Hamish. I guess I better look into that more. It’s probably about 1n 1/8th to 1 n 1/4 not 100 percent sure to be honest. Do they typically not have that look to them. I just knew they had the D shaped limbs. I probably have it that way because that’s kinda what I’m used to doing. I’m gonna look into it and might have to change it up in the handle area. Thanks for getting me thinking.
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For elb's you can build them to bend through the handle, or various degrees of stiffness. Many variations were made. The style you have at the moment will give you a stiff handle, like we use with most flatbows. It arguably makes the smoothest shooting style, less handshock.
No need to change if you don't want to.
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Yeah I’m seeing that now after looking around today. The one Thing I’m finding out about this particular Osage stave is that the rings don’t really like the D shape. As it tapers down towards the tip. Now this stave has a little thicker early wood rings than I’d like so that might have something to do with it. Is what it is. It sands out okay so I’m sure it’ll be fine.
I did find the cow horn tips on eBay. Are they typically solid on the last 2-3-4 inches, I really don’t know.
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I reckon your osage will handle the D section just fine.
You can use cow, buffalo, or even yak horn. If it says" tips" in the description, it should be solid. Look at the photos, if there is any delamination on the cut side, don't buy it. 3" sections are good (or even a 2" section will do for a lower limb tip which is usually shorter).
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Bought some buffalo horn on the web. Coming from Germany I think, said it might take a couple weeks to get here. Worked on the bow for a while today. It’s almost bending enough to put a string on it. Not going to do much more till I can get the nocks on it.
Hamish, I measured it in the handle section today 1.18 inches pretty much both directions. It’s bending a little better but, still got a ways to go. I put my bow scale on it and it’s about 37 lbs about where it’s bent to in the photo.
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That's looking pretty neat! Might have to give it a try with some narrow stuff.
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It’s been fun so far wooddamon. I wish I had gotten my horn for my tips before I started working on it. Not a big deal but when you’re in the mood to work on something and you have to wait on stuff it’s kinda annoying. It’s coming from Germany so it’s gonna be a minute.
Worst thing about it is shipping is almost as much as the horn tips.
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Looking very nice mike! cant wait to see more progress on this one. You can buy buff horn tips at the pet store sold as dog chews btw. they work great and are way cheeper.
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I pretty much knew you can get the dog chews Mr Dave. Not super easy to find around here but can be had. I just wanted to use cow horn if I could get it, which I did today from a different company in the USA. The stuff I ordered that was from Germany is still in transit. It’s in the states last I saw it was in NY at the usps facility.
The cow horn tips I got today were actually polished and solid tips up to about 3-5 inches long.
$28.60 for 10 tips and that included shipping which I thought was pretty cheap, really..
Pretty much all black but might have a little blonde in a couple of them..
Hoping to work on it some pretty soon.
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Looking good, wished you lived closer, I have plenty of cow horns I would have been glad to share, love trading and especially gifting, just don't like to ship. ;) :) Can't wait to see this one all finished up. :)
Pappy
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Thanks for the thought Pappy. Hope you’re making it through the storms okay.
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Think of as a long Skinny pyramid . Flat back then D shape the pyramid from fade to tip. Here is a 67” Osage I made.
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Pic. Handle section.
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🤠🤠I did not like mine. It was shocky!! But I made use of a skinny stave. Interesting thing is you can adjust your tiller a bit by moving your hand up or down may be why the English made the bow that way . .
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That looks similar to mine Selfbowman. Mine is a bit longer at about 75 inches. I’m trying to shape my ends for the cow horn now. Drilled a 1/2 inch hole about 1 1/4 deep into the horns I’m going to use. My dilemma now is that my limb tips are bigger than that 1/2 in diameter of my hole, so I’m not 100 percent sure what I should do. I figure I’m just gonna have to thin my bow some down by the tips.
My question would be that if I end up violating the ring will that hurt the bow being so close to the tip?
That’s the only thing I can figure to do other than make my hole bigger but then I’m thinking it’ll look clunky at the tips. It’s kind of a practice bow anyway but I’d like for it to turn out decent..
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If you are worried about violating the ring on the flat back you might put a small overlay on the tip before shaping the tip to receive the horn.
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Here's how I did my horn nocks if it helps, I got a 12mm hole cutting drill bit and ground it to a spear leaf shape, I also use it as a template to shape the limb tip to get a snug fit. The width at the socket ends up at 11mm - 12mm and the depth of the drill hole I go to is 45mm in a length of 2" horn. Once glued on I then shape the horn nock, mostly with a horse rasp.
R.D.
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Nice horn tips!
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Thanks guys. I got my tips glued on today.. that’s pretty much what I did Ruddy. It remains to be seen how they end up. I’ve watched some videos, one was Richard Head longbows and another one or two. I’ll probably start shaping the tips in a day or two. Once I get that done I’ll make a string and go from there.. I’ll try and post some pictures along the way..
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Got my tips on and shape. Still have a little to do on them. Got a string on it. Didn’t take any pictures of it strung up. It was a string I found laying around the shop. Braced to about 4 inches.
It’ll work for now to do a little tillering.
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Lookin good Mike!
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Those look great cant wait to see them all polished up!
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Got a string on it and braced to 6 inches. A little tillering but not much. It was already not to bad. Got it pulling down to 28 inches. A little over 40 lbs.
any thoughts on the tiller are appreciated. Also polished the tips a little.
Top limb is to the left in the photo
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String doesn’t line up great.
I did shoot about 10-15 shots through it it shot okay. Arrows were over spined for it. Not real bad hand shock
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Worked on the tiller a bit more. Picture is at 30 inches
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You could use some dry heat and tweak that handle to get your alignment. I think the bend looks good. Im sure some of the guys with more elb experience will tell you it should be more elliptical? Where are you Del?! Those nocks came out great!! All around nice job. Whats it pulling at 30"?
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String looks to be relatively centered on the handle and not outside it, so what the limbs do elsewhere is only a cosmetic issue.
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I agree Hamish about the string lining up with the handle , that’s pretty good. Actually was just noticing the two limbs aren’t as in line like I would have liked.
Ajooter, it’s about 43-44 lbs if I remember right. I’m good with that.
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Looking good, you done a nice job on the tips, they look great. :)
Pappy
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Finally got this bow finished up. Turned out okay, for me :)
It’s 42 lbs @ 30 inch draw
75 3/4 tip 2 tip
AMO is 71 1/4
Mother of pearl strike plate and a jute handle and cow horn tips
Bottom limb is 1 inch shorter than the top
Just as a side note the last picture is the mother of pearl I got from way fair as a sample for tile backsplash. 2mm thick and cost me $6.37 with free shipping. Much cheaper than anything I could find anywhere else online.
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That cane out great! Did you have a pic of the inlay? Good to know on the mother of pearl. I would love to try some.
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I do jooter. I’ll post a picture tomorrow. It’s just a small rectangle. I had seen photos similar to the one I did. I had thought about ordering some leather strips for the handle but decided I’d just use jute twine. It makes a good handle and I had some in my shop so, no waiting for delivery.
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Looks good. The center is a bit too stiff to be considered an ELB.
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That’s good to know Mark. I didn’t know that the bow needed to be designed to bend in a circular shape to be considered a ELB. I truthfully thought that it was the limbs having the D shape as opposed to flat. If I ever make another. Thanks for the info.
Ajooter here’s a picture of the handle wrap and the inlay. Not a prize pig, either one but not the worst either. I tend to just want to be done sometimes. No patience can be a problem for me sometimes 😀