Finished composite hickory bow/ pics

[BowEd]

Hello.Here's a bow I sinewed the first week of April I've been waiting to tiller.A 60" pignut hickory with a horn belly on it.As a few of you may know you've seen me make this type of bow before.This one is different in the way I constructed it.I pre measured,tapered and estimated the components to come out when glued and cured so that it would be in tiller and be very close to my draw weight.Sorta like a glue up of a BBO right off the form.Reason being I did'nt want to remove hardly any material tillering especially the horn.I'm pleased to say it worked.Core is 50%,Sinew is 25%,Horn is 25% of thickness.
Tillering time took less than a half hour.Draw weight initially was 55# @ 28".I tillered off 2.5 pounds which to me is very minimal.Close enough.Just a few sanding strokes from a sanding disk pad on each limb.It now is 52.5#@ 28" just what I wanted.Been shooting it in at this time.
The bow started out before with 10" of reflex.After tillering/bracing and shooting the last couple of days it holds 8" reflex @ rest in 2 hours and 8.25" over night.It held over 80% of it's reflex for me.It is far from finished for close up pics of it yet but would like to show a few pics of it anyway at this stage.Been thinking birch bark or copperheads over the back and staining the hickory with some sort of stain.Nothing really that special.Thanks for looking.
From a pretty much flat core to just after horn is applied.


Starting profile and sinew job smooth as glass before tillering.



After tillering and 2 hours after shooting all afternoon @ rest

Brace

Full draw

[mikekeswick]

Cool
It would interesting to see what it does through the chrono.
How long is it and how wide are the limbs?
It looks like it needs more strain!

[Peacebow_Coos]

Wow, that's a work of art there, that thing must be a beast to brace!  What kind of horn?

[Parnell]

I'm really impressed with the profile.  Looking forward to seeing that bow finished up.

[Aaron H]

Very cool ed

[BowEd]

Mike.....I realize you are a student of these horn bows and Karpo's book,and a credit here.I've had his book too for a number of years.Me a student probably not to the extent you are in that you have a couple of beautiful horn bows to your credit that you displayed on here and although I have one cured I have not tillered it yet and one ready for sinew also.I did go through the work of grooving core to horn though on both and finishing out these horn bows can get you a more in depth view point.
You are right from what I can gather from Karpos' book that this bow @ 28" is definitely understrained.It is 58.25" long NTN  60" TTT and 1.25" wide at fades.Approximately an 8" handle.At least 8" stiff levers on the tips.Taper on width and thickness app.1/16" every 5 and 3/8" length along limbs from the fades.Slow and evenly.It probably should be pulled up to at least 30" anyway.Then I believe the draw weight would be around 57#.Mass on it is 17.40 ounces.Which according to Karpos' book is a pretty high mass to draw weight ratio.A little over 9,but in the ball park or under a bit of Steve Gardners mass weight formula for self bows which says it should be around 22 ounces because of induced reflex or 18 ounces normally.Hav'nt shot it through the chrono.According to what I've stated here what do you think it will shoot?
Construction was usual like horn bows are.Core prepared and tapered flat side view profile.Horn tapered too and glued onto belly of core but heated into a bit of a curvature before applying it.No grooving.Then sinew applied using a reverse stringing of 3 courses over a weeks time tapered and crowned slightly too.
Peacebow_Coos......Yes it's always an adventure to string these up especially the first time.After that not so much.The tips are not too sharply bent to static so a normal type primitive stringer can be used to string it.Pretty safe actually and not too strenuous.Too dangerously set back to string these using the push pull method though.A different type stringer is used when the statics are sharply bent.Actually getting the tips to 6" past the handle only required around 54 pounds.16" of tip travel.Gemsbok was the horn that was used.

[BowEd]

Thanks fellas.I'm still shooting it and have a #D shoot this saturday to go to to help that along and then the finish work will begin.

[Knotty]

@BeadMan , please allow me to ask you a question:

I've always been fascinated by horn bows , technically what I understood about your bow is that you made a hickory selfbow to start off, backed it with sinew and added horn to the belly for compression purposes?

Thanks in advance for your answer, you did an amazing job!

[BowEd]

Knotty....In a nut shell yes but in a different order.The width/length/and thickness will determine your draw weight.The core of this one might have been barely a 20 pound bow @ 28".I did not test this one on the tree.In the past I did.I did'nt want or need to this time.After making enough of these you get a better insight as to how much poundage you will get from your composites that are added.
The horn is applied first to the core then the sinewing begins.Reverse stringing it as the courses are applied.Reasons for this is that I want to put the horn into tension and the sinew into compression gradually as it drys between courses.This is hard to understand unless you have Karpos' book but what happens then after it is cured when the bow is drawn during tillering and shooting the composites press themselves into the core to eliminate delamination if glue lines are properly done.I'm sure there is someone else on here that maybe can explain it better but that's my understanding of it.I hope you can picture what I said.
These bows can be really magical in a way compared to making self bows.Flexing/tillering/and seeing them come around to tiller.Shooting them is a little like pulling on a rubber band.I'm sure the all horn bow makers know this feeling but if you put enough horn and sinew thickness on a wood core the feeling will be the same.Your outside third of limbs towards the tips needs to be set back and stiff enough to eliminate any stack at the end of the draw while being light enough to eliminate hand shock.Sounds like a tall order ehhhhh?It is'nt once you do a few.
This one I got to working a bit more on the outer limbs than ones in the past without it stacking and not quite as much on the inner limbs.To me one reason why besides being overbuilt for the draw weight that it did'nt take much set.The length on this one is another reason too.

[wizardgoat]

That's a cool bow. I know a bowyer in Washington state who makes similar modern style composites.
I agree with that length you could get a little more draw length, but I bet it shoots great at 28"
Unstrung profile is awesome

[bubby]

Looks great ed, get a horn ring and yank it back and see what ya get

[DC]

That's a beautiful bow. Love the braced and full draw pics.

[Knotty]

@BeadMan don't worry I totally understood, thank you for taking your time to answer my question 😊

[BowEd]

Thanks DC.
bubby....Pulling back to 30" will make my form even more screwed up then it is.I'd have to start all over again.I like coming close at least to what I'm shooting at......lol.and then a horn ring too yet....that's too much change....lol.The bow should probably get pulled back to 32" to get the right amount of efficiency from it.That means a kiper and new arrow shafts just for a specific bow.Ahhhhhhh too much.....lol.Then to top it off I'd lose a bunch of my wonderful set back too yet.Guess that's the test these bows should get put through though.
wizardgoat.....I guess it's a modern composite.Really Knotty hit it on the head to me.It's just a self bow with composites on it.Only I've refined my self bows to work a bit better than I did 7 years ago.....lol.
There is no sinew on the last 8 or 9 inches before the tip.I always do that for easier no nervous tip alignment to be done with the heat gun.
I'm gonna open a subject up about heat adjustment to horn applied to a wood core with smooth on with sinew on the back of wood core.I've done this in the past with no problems occuring.Waving the heat gun on the low setting of 500 degrees[mines' a Wagner high-1100 degrees/low-500 degrees] back and forth and then checking with a laser thermometer to not go over 150 degrees slowly twist/reflex/and deflex can be done a limb.Everything has to be cured well though first to do this.Smooth is supposed to be able to handle up to 280 degrees before delamination.I've never needed to go that high.Sinew should'nt go over 120 degrees but if cured well you can push that too and creep back then won't be much either.

[mikekeswick]

Beadman - thanks for taking the time to reply properly I would guess at 28 inch draw 10gpp arrows = 170fps. Increase that drawlength  and it will obviously be better.I look forward to seeing your two Turkish? hornbows as well.
I've been learning to shoot with the thumbring....it takes some dedication....it's taken me two months to start to get any where near my 'normal' accuracy back. I just went to our 3D National champs.....only managed 500 points normally I'd be closer to 700. Once you get down to about 50 inches I think the thumbring is the only logical choice.
Again congratulations on your new bow. It will look a million dollars when you do the finish work.