Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: mechanic on August 18, 2011, 02:45:45 AM
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAwvs3kFKrE
Bit more of my bowyer hobby to share if anyone likes that kind of thing.
S!
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lots of fun as always
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good work again bat. are you just finding nice pieces of hazel on the ground and going for it? pretty cool :)
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Maybe you should make it more then a hobby. Ive been out of archery for awhiles but the trend was starting to go backwards. Shooting carbon out of Lazer Bows is only so much fun. My first bow was a straight and then I hunted for years from the ground with recurves. Theres a market for hand made Bows from yester year. Just like many of us rifle shooters got tired and went to frontstuffers.
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Tink Nathan used to make my bows but he's retired and I've been out of archery for 20 years.
I do have a 55 pound recurve shakesphere bow that hasn't been strung in 20 years.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAwvs3kFKrE
Bit more of my bowyer hobby to share if anyone likes that kind of thing.
S!
Nice man. Do you sell any of them? I used to shoot bows when I was younger and always wanted to get back into it but nowadays its all high tech gear and crap... it takes the feel out of it imo. Your bows are exactly what I'd love to shoot. Particularly the 2nd one in the video.. I drool for it! :D
If you do sell any send me a PM. :)
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:aok
My cousin does this as well. He makes the bows, arrows, chord, arrowheads. Plus he is going to use deer tendons on his next bow instead of the non-natural stuff he is using now. he has about 5 or 6 of them already made. He has even been allowed to start teaching it in his history class at the catholic school he teaches at.
Its really cool to watch being done.
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Batty,
A timely post considering we were just talking about this! The smaller bows remind me of native american bows as they tended to be small,I guess a smaller bow has advantages in the bush. Glad to see that you actually made a couple out of Yew,I bet you wish you could get a nice 8ft stave to work with.
Over here the orange Osage is the wood of choice,it's very similar to your Yew and even has the same 2 tone wood. What surprizes me is that you carve the bows before you dry the wood,is there a reason for this? Also I think I saw a couple of knots,do these cause problems as the bow cures?
As I told you I can get just about any wood I'd like,maple is everywhere but I've heard that fruit trees make some of the best woods for bows.Mullberry is supposed to be 1 of the top woods and as I mentioned before"ironwood" or hophornbean was what I'd planned to use but it was mistakenly put into the wood stove! :furious
So what I'd like to know is it worth it to let it "cure" then split and make the bow or should I just work with it "green" and allow it to cure after it's shaped?
:salute
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Thanks for the replies! I am slowly building up a nice collection of logs and staves. The best thing about hazel is it grows quickly and abundantly. I would like to sell bows one day, perhaps in about another year when I have built up a bigger collection of seasoned wood and pre-made bows.
The reason I shape the bows before they are seasoned is lack of patience. With hazel this is ok though, because I can easily string them and tiller them then when I destring them I am able to bend them back straight. Once I am happy with the bow I try to resist stringing it again for a long time. With hazel I have found that if I shape the stave and then coat it in bee's wax and paint water tight paint over the tips the stave seasons slower and it avoids cracking. The two Yew bows on the other ahnd, I left to cure for many months before I split the logs. I have little experince with yew, but yes I would love to find a nice 8ft log. The knots are a huge weakness in any wood. I don't think they make any problems for curing but they require carefull thought and craftmanship when shaping the bow. Leaving them proud gives them more strength. Morf, I think unlesss you are using hazel, you should leave the would to season for a good long while in a dry warm place.
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that small yew bow looks similar to those bows used by ?mongols on horseback at full draw :aok
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yeah very similar size but the mongol bows were exceptionaly powerfull. They were deflex reflex recurve bows, let me find a pic.
(http://www.recurvebowshop.com/pictures/traditional%20recurve%20bows/wolf+3+recurve+bow+kassai+farkas3/tn/wolf+3+recurve+bow+kassai+farkas300.jpg)
The left hand pic is what it looks like unstrung, so when strung there is alreaqdy a huge ammount of stored energy. They would have been composite also made from wood, horn and possibly sinews. My bows are purely a single piece of wood, so the power I can get is proportional to the effort I have to pull them with. The mongol horse bow is technology far advanced from mine.
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so the 2nd bow in your video.. what wood & type of bow is it?
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Thx Batty, if I'm feeling up to it I may take a walk and select a couple of young trees to harvest! No worries there's plenty around and it's not illegal!
Those Mongol bows are indeed composit,they used wood horn and sinews/rawhide to make them. I've seen self bows that were rawhide backed,this is done to help resist fracturing the bow,much like the wraps Batty put on that 1 of his. The real secret to the mongol bows are the glues they used! I'm sure modern glues would do as good a job bonding but I suspect the glues they used had certain properties they help make their bows so powerful.
Batty, I watched 1 of your vids,that you carved out the bow on,have you used and power tools to speed things up? I have several belt sanders that will remove material rather quickly and I also have a power plane,hand held. I also have all the hand tools to do it old school,well I need a new drawknife as mine has walked away somewhere,but what I'm asking is "does it make any difference other than the time involved"?
On a side note,I'm planning on making a few wooden Oriental weapons as wall hangers!
:salute
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The second bow is made of Hazel also Tac, it is stained dark brown and vanished. It would class as a longbow.
edit: here Tac, check out my friend Robert drawing that same bow to 32". This was before I stained it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYiuEbQmuuQ
Morf I think you could do just as good a job with power tool. I don't use them as a matter of principle and I am lucky enough to have the youthfull energies required. Nothing wrong with making a bow with power tools. Just have to make sure you don't go too far. Its alot easier to ruin the bow in seconds with a power tool I would imagine. With hand tools youre less likely to take off too much wood as it is a slow process. I think the top bowyers of the medieval period would have loved to get their hands on a power plane. Just don't take off too much wood! you can't put it back on.
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Awesome Bat!
Batty, I watched 1 of your vids,that you carved out the bow on,have you used and power tools to speed things up? I have several belt sanders that will remove material rather quickly and I also have a power plane,hand held. I also have all the hand tools to do it old school,well I need a new drawknife as mine has walked away somewhere,but what I'm asking is "does it make any difference other than the time involved"?
The problem with power tools is that they take wood off too quickly. You can use a band saw or power planer (or even an axe) to do the very basic roughing out, but I'd switch to hand tools sooner rather than later. They'll quickly turn your stave into firewood. The better the stave, the quicker I'd switch, lol.
The basic idea is to remove the bark, and the outer layer of wood, without breaking into the next growth-ring AT ALL. If you break into it, I'd recommend removing the entire ring, and stopping before you break into the next one. That's on the back of the bow. Often, the back of the bow will undulate a bit as you follow the outer edge of the growth ring. That's fine with hand tools, but not so good with power tools. As a matter of fact, most hand tools will remove wood almost too quickly, and it'll only take one stroke to wreck your bow. Final shaping is more scraping than cutting or carving. On the belly, you remove wood as well, but how much depends on how the bow is tillering and how much draw weight you desire, as well as the width of the limbs, etc. You won't stay within a single growth ring there. And if you do a good job scraping with a sharp blade at right-angles to the bow you won't even need to sand it.
The advent of power tools is what led bowyers to switch to more modern techniques and materials (fiberglass, and epoxy laminated limbs). Quicker construction maybe, but less finesse.
The best-made, most durable wood bow is 95% broken at full draw. All wood bows will break eventually unless you use them as a wall-hanger. Some bows last longer than others...
Seasoning the wood will make it less likely to splinter or crack during the tillering phase, and make it generally less likely to follow the string. It'll also greatly reduce the likelihood of your fine, finished, bow warping and splitting as the wood dries further. And nice seasoned wood will shoot faster arrows.
That said, it'll take you a few tries to turn something you like out. I'd get started right away, and get some practice in while you have other staves seasoning. Cut several 6" diameter logs 6-7 feet long from live trees, and paint the ends with latex paint. Leave the bark on. The longer they take to dry, the better. Stick them somewhere dry and warmish (the rafters of a shed or garage works well) but well-supported so that they don't warp too much. In a year or two, split them with a wedge and maul, using any cracks that develop in the meanwhile as starting points. Each log will yield 4-5 staves, 1 or 2 of which will be really nice. Ash and hickory are nice and pretty forgiving.
While they're drying, make a few bows of unseasoned wood.
Wet-wood bows work fine, and make good survival tools, they just don't last as long, they'll follow the string more, and they'll shoot slower. Still lots of fun though, and still better than those new-fangled training-wheel jobs :D
If you want to start with a nice seasoned stave but need one tomorrow, give these guys a try-
http://www.missouritrading.com/bowlist.htm
For some really good tools, books, DVD's, and even primitive bow kits-
http://www.3riversarchery.com/
I'd really recommend this book series myself...
http://www.amazon.com/Traditional-Bowyers-Bible-1/dp/1585740853
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Excellent write up MTN, thanks! I use the outter most growth ring on most of my bows to avoid that complication. I remove wood from the belly only. This is easy with hazel but often not possible with other woods.
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Thx to both you guys!
I watched Batty hammer on a nice plane iron to shape one of his bows and thought that I could accomplish the same thing with a belt sander. I do have several hand planes of assorted sizes including a spokeshave,did have a drawknife but it seems to have walked away. So I'm pretty sure at some point I'd like to go to the trouble of making a bow that way I thought I could take a few short cuts,afterall as you've both said I'll want to make a few of them.
At this point it's a matter of going and getting some material to work with!
:salute
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Since making that tutorial I have invested in a spoke shave myself. Best tool ever! On the belly side you can save hours of tough rasping with the spoke shave. With a good hazel log I would want the thickness not to be much more than 4-6 inches. As there is no real distinction between sap and heart wood it is feasable to only remove wood from the belly and leave the back with the natural strength.