Egyptian composite build a-long

[welch2]

I am trying to make a Egyptian horn bow like the one's found in Tut's tomb. Most of these bows have composite cores ,not sure why .My guess is that since the bows were about 1" wide and almost round ,the layered cores help make it more stable side to side. Here are my core pieces lemonwood and hickory ,with the handle's deflex steamed in.





Next I sawed the hickory in two length wise so I could glue it to each side of the lemonwood ,and tapered the lemonwood down to about 1/4" on each end . Then with a pot of warm hide glue ,glued up the core.





After drying for a few weeks ,here is the core so far.




Ralph

[welch2]

Before I started on the core I split several gemsbok horns on the bandsaw ,and put them in big tub of milk .After they had soaked for a month , I pulled them out and tied them to board to straighten and flatten them.No boiling or added heat.







I let them dry out and harden back up , here they are now.





Ralph

[bowmunky13]

milk ? my only guess is the lactic acid in the milk sofftens the horn once it impregnates it? this is a fascinating bow... i might have to get a set of gemsbok horns and get started on one my self.... but milk?? for a month??? ewwwww

[welch2]

If you get a really nice one you only need one horn ,after you saw it half each half becomes a limb. The milk idea comes from the Mongolian bowyer who made my ibex bellied horn bow . I normally use hide glue just thin enough to not gel , just as smelly though.


Ralph

[radius]

i agree with the munky:  a month of milk is too much!!!

[welch2]

    It took me a while to come around to the idea of soaking horn instead of boiling them.

My idea was that boiling is cooking ,and cooking the horns in water may break down the proteins that make up the horn or at least leach some of them out . So I started boiling my horns in hide glue .(The water can't absorb things from the horn if it is already super saturated.) The cooking time seemed to go down a bit , and I didn't have to coat the horn with several thin coats of glue in order for the glue to stick.

It was a short leap from there to just soaking the horns till they were saturated and pliable. When they are ready the horns are very slimy . Then I normally heat the tub just a little (like heating hide glue   ) and tie or clamp the horns to a form to dry in the shape I want. The working time is longer than just boiling too.

Then I found out the Mongolians do a very similar thing with milk , and I had to try it.

Ralph

[welch2]

Today I sanded the belly side of a few horn pieces flat , and trued up the belly and back of the core.





You can see the glue lines between the core laminations better in these pictures ,I think. In the next photo you can tell my core is still quite wide. So, narrowing it down to near the width of the horn is the next step.



Ralph

[radius]

keep it coming, man!

[welch2]

Here are crossections of a few of the originals.



And here a some profiles. The top one is a selfbow , the bottom one is the one I'm trying to copy.



And this is upper limb and nock details the bottom bow again is the one I'm after.



Ralph

[1/2primitive]

This should be interesting, I'l be watching this one.

Does the milk smell after that long of sitting out?
    Sean

[welch2]

Yes is does smell rather pungent .   
I'll try to take more pictures this weekend.

Ralph

[JackCrafty]

Excellent topic!      I'm fascinated.

[juniper junkie]

really cool. will watch this with much anticipation. thanks for sharing.

[Ryano]

Really milk ? Wow, I never would have guessed. Guess you learn something new all the time. Soaking the horn in water doesnt do anything but milk does?

[welch2]

Milk is new to me too, as I said earlier I normally use hide glue to soak my horns . My thinking that lead me to this ,was hearing all the warnings about boiling horn to long ,and making them brittle or just weak. So me and my brother thought about it awhile ,and we think that boiling horn in water cooks it a bit and worse, leaches out some of the protiens .  Then we started heating our horns in hide glue instead of water .Thinking that if the water is already saturated with the stuff (karatin , calogin) it can't leach any more from the horns. It worked really well . From there we started soaking our roughed out horns in weak hide glue (just weak enough to not quite gell) . We leave them in till they get flexable and slimy ( So we call it slimifacation    ) this works even better , we only have to heat the horns a very little ,like warming hide glue... And the working time is much longer than boiling , and the horns don't need much sizing with glue . 

Today I thinned the hickory laminations alot , using the horn strips as a rough guide.



I also made a little hickory piece to reinforce the deflexed handle.  I mixed a little horn dust with the glue ,to apply to the edges of the joint and spinkled dust along the joint edge . I grooved both surfaces with a toothing plane blade too.





Ralph