2nd bow is nearly done- a few questions

[Chicknlady]

I got the shaping of my second bow almost done yesterday.  It actually went OK, although I broke down and used the body grinder to take the thickness of the limbs down.   .   Not very primitive but it worked great!   The wood was hard enough and my draw knife needs better sharpening... yet another skill I need to work on  .



The bow is ash, 54" long.  It already has some set from the little bit of tillering I did.  My first question is, it's still maybe 5 pounds too heavy for me so I need to take some more wood off.  Should I take it from the belly, or narrow down the sides of the bow?  The ends of the bow are 1" wide and 1/4" thick, and 1-1/4" wide and 3/8" thick near the handle. 

The other question is how much should you "round" off the handle on the back of the bow?  I think this picture shows a sorta sharp edge that isn't too comfortable for my hand, but I was afraid to cut into the back.    Thanks!

[blackhawk]

Well if dat dar piece o wood was mine i wood leave the width alone,heat treat it while inducing an inch or two of reflex,then finish tillering it out by removing wood from the belly only,and id narrow the last few inches of my tips to at least a half inch.....but thats just me

Careful chicknlady...these things are addictive and ya might find out soon that your neglecting your yard birds cus your spending all your time on whittlin wood 

[Del the cat]

It's probably narrow enough already, I think Ash is best wide and thin
If you post a pic of it at full draw we can suggest the best place from which to loose a few pounds.
Regarding the grip, stick some thick hard leather on to the back, then shape it to suit and then cover with a thin leather grip.
That's what I do on some of my longbows that have that sharp edge.
Here's a link to a post in my Bowyers Diary showing what I mean, you may find some useful stuff there (the search engine works well)
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/finishing-touches.html
Check out my website too (Google Delsbows to find it)
Del

[Range Guy]

Careful chicknlady...these things are addictive and ya might find out soon that your neglecting your yard birds cus your spending all your time on whittlin wood 
[/quote]


What Blackhawk said I just finished a bow, now I have a shave horse, draw knife.... well you get the hint LOL.  good luck and I have found blackhawk's avice number one!

[Chicknlady]

Del, looks like you fitted a thick piece of leather to the back then wrapped the whole thing with a grip?  Good idea, I might have to thin the handle down a little since it's almost too thick now.

Blackhawk, I did a bunch of looking and reading into the reflexing, and it sounds a little bit scary.  Would you try to reflex it just back enough so it's straight again?  From what I read though it goes back to where it was alot.  I tried a search here and it was mostly over my head.   I have three more sister staves to this one, maybe I'll leave this one alone and practice on No.3!

The yard birds are getting big enough I might move them in with the big girls soon.  The bigger they get the bigger the poop-squares are all over the yard from the pen!  Yuck 

lol, Guy, and it's all I needed was another hobby...  My husband already thinks I'm a nut-case  !

[Pappy]

Looking good so far,looks like most of the set is near the handle, I would stay off that if you need more wood off and get the mid limbs bending,set at the handle is the worst,it really shows up at the tips. What weight and draw length are you looking for, 54 is pretty short for a very long draw ,much over 23/24.
   Pappy

[Parnell]

Well, my thoughts are up already with what's been said, but, don't be afraid of heat treating your bow!  You'll be amazed at the importance of the step!  It's a no brainer - you don't have to have cauls and forms, etc.  If you have a heat gun, just coat the belly with crisco, olive oil, or such and "toast the belly until it's dark but not charred.  You can induce some reflex simply by doing basically a "reverse" ground tiller - just give it a little bit of bend in the opposite direction while the wood is heated and hold.  It will be a fine starting point for you and will really improve the bow!

Good luck, it's looking nice - post pictures of your tillering and take your time!

Stephen

[mikekeswick]

Well done on getting this far.
Your bow is bending too much near the handle. Look at the set you are getting - it's all near the fades with the rest of the limbs still straight.
As a general rule of thumb a bow should have no set in the inner limbs, a little should start in the mid limb gradually increasing towards the tips. Any set in the inner limbs affects the resting point of the tip way more than if it's in the mid limb to the tip.
Don't worry about cutting into the back to make it comfortable, I'm not saying you can just hack the back up! but you can certainly radius it fairly heavily as long as you leave an 'untouched' bit down the center.
You say your tips are an inch wide - no tip needs to be wider than 1/2 inch. So mark a 1/4 off each side and reduce the width from midlimb to the new tip width. Again let the lack of set be your guide. Reduce the width from where there is no set to the tip.

[Chicknlady]

Pappy, I'm looking for about a 35 pound draw.  I don't have a scale, but comparing this bow to my 40-pound Martin, I think it's somewhere from 40-45 right now.

Mike, if I taper the outer limbs of the bow down to 1/2" like you suggested, will that take alot of weight off the draw?

As far as the reflex, Parnell, I don't have a heat gun.  But somewhere on TV (Norm Abram??) made a steamer for chair legs or whatnot with a long 4" PVC tube and had steam going into it.  Anybody try this, would it work OK? 

Thanks!

oh, and, would you reflex first, then take the bow down to the poundage you want??

Thanks again!

[Pappy]

If you are going to reflex it I would do it now,I wouldn't steam at this point ,but yes it will work,I just always steam [if I plan to ] first. More way to heat treat than a heat gun,string it slightly backwards and heat on a stove top. Heat gun is a little easier,sell some eggs or hot wings and buy a heat gun.  Or you can just go with what you have,just stay away from the fads.
   Pappy

[Buckeye Guy]

Chickenlady
There are a lot of ways to skin a chicken !
May be even more ways to cook it !
You are on the right track by being here and diving into it full on !
I like your attitude and thoughts of no 3 being better than no 2 !
the more you do the the more you will learn !
the more pics you share the better advise we can give you ! So look through some of the other threads on here and see the pics that others post !
I think you want to narrow up the tips then exercise it some and show us your new bow !!
Have fun !!
Guy

[Chicknlady]

Pappy, a kind PMer alerted me to the fact that heat guns are not nearly as pricey as I had thought, probably alot cheaper than making a Norm Abrams chair-leg bender  !

Guy, you guys are awesome and thanks for the words of encouragement!

Gotta post this pic, with the following explanation:  tonight I was shooting with the little survival bow, and for whatever reason decided to string up the 40-pound Martin recurve (after shooting the self-bow, the Martin is quite the contraption!).  I realized a few things, like must be the spring gardening buffed up the arms, I shot the 40-pounder with no trouble.   Also that it's way more powerful and I really needed to aim lower:  I overshot the bales with three arrows, and although I somehow actually found them all under the grass, I hate hunting arrows so I got out my survey paint and now have orange practice arrows (hence the picture).

Biggest revelation, I want make a bow to shoot more like the Martin, so I need to get more serious and not be afraid of stuff like reflexing and narrow tips... Amen  .

[Parnell]

Glad to hear your going to look at the heat gun.  Yes, they really aren't that pricey.
Not sure if it was explained - the "toasting" of the belly wood cells compresses them so that they don't take on the memory that would otherwise happen if a bow was perhaps too narrow or had a hingy spot it it's tillering.  Good tillering is key so that you avoid hingy spots during the process but toast those whitewood bows!
I haven't done it myself, but I imagine you could do some toasting of bow limbs over a fire, it would be harder to control the heat, though.  A small pile of charcoals? 

[JEB]

Well done chickenlady. I am attempting to make my first bow and it also is out of ash.  I have three guys giving me some of their thoughts on it and all have made many bows.  Mine had some string follow in it so last night "we" set it on a mold and clamped it at the handle.  I then smothered the bow, both sides with deer tallow and heated the limbs clamping as they got more limber.   After it cooled it took most of the bend out of it but I think some of it will come back. I have short draw shot it many times and it tosses an arrow pretty good.

I to am just starting to finish sanding it and shaping the handle trying to get the sharp edges off the belly side of the bow.

I will continue to read for more help.  Thanks for posting this. FYI your bow looks a heck of a lot nicer than mine.  I was told by my instructors I have made a character bow, LOL  Not sure if they were talking about me or the bow though.

[Chicknlady]

Hi Jeb!  I was typing as you posted.   LOL, "character bow"!  I like that.  The little survival bow I made a few months ago is definitely one of those!  Thanks for your description of the reflexing... this is the stuff I'm having a hard time searching for!  Most posts just say "heat it and bend it", and my mind is saying, "but what about...."        So did you heat just the belly, and actually "toast" it brown like has been mentioned?

mikekeswick, you mentioned that most of the set in my bow is near the fades...  to reflex, should I concentrate on heating just those small areas, or do the handle too, or gradually heat the whole thing??   



Thanks!