Been busy in the shop

[Jamie]

I decided to start tillering the two blanks Dean had glued up and let the ones I boiled and glued hang in the hotbox for a while longer. The short one is an odd length of only 59 1/2" nock to nock, which is really a shorty unless you only pull it 25". After I got a string on it, I discovered why the old man likely did not finish it. It appears to be a mismatched pair of board billets, and now that I have it tillered to 50# @ 27", which is as far as it is going and probably too far for its length anyway, it is a little wonky when relaxed. The bottom limb is showing a little more string follow than the top, and not evenly to boot. That is odd because it looks great at brace height and when drawn to 27" it is bending gracefully from end to end. I have not shot it yet. I will give it a hundred or so pulls on my tillering tree before I do. Today, I got busy on the 66" blank from Dean's shop, working it down in weight and making some minor corrections until I could get it braced. This is going to be a really nice bow. I have it tillered to 27" also and it is currently 55# @ 27" (which means it is about 58# @ 28.5"). I'm shooting for 50# @ 28.5", so I am exactly where I want to be at 5 or 10 lbs over what I want the finished bow to pull. There is still a little bit of shaping to do, plus narrowing the nocks to their final width which will likely cost me 3-5lbs. This also leaves me some room for further correction should the need arise, and lots of sanding. The bare minimum sanding usually costs about 1-2lbs of draw weight. I'd rather hand sand 5lbs off than miss weight by 2lbs. I friggin' hate it when they finish 2lbs shy of the planned finished draw weight, especially a hunting bow for me, lol.

I may be shooting both of these tomorrow.

 

[Jamie]

I finally got around to shooting the 66"er yesterday after dealing with an unwelcome surprise as I worked the bow on tillering tree to near full draw. The more I worked it, the stiffer the lower limb got. Actually, what was happening is few corrections I had made to the middle third of upper limb kind of showed up all at once in the form of bending more but fortunately bending more exactly where and how much I wanted it to. Still, now I have to weaken the lower limb, which means giving up more weight. After three times removing a small amount of stock from the entire lower limb, bracing, working on the tree and measuring the tiller I was gaining some ground. One more time, then I worked the bow on the tree to my full 28 1/2" draw a few dozen times, then went out to shoot it for the first time. Happy I wasn't tuning broadhead yesterday as the wind was blowing 25+mph all damn day, lol. First shots produced some very unexpected hand shock, like I have not experienced in a very long time. I knew the lower limb was still a tad stiff, but this was something else. I shot the bow about 30 times and went back to check the tiller again. Shooting the bow did not produce any change in tiller. I removed more stock and called it a day. While pondering the hand shock issue last night it occurred to me that I did not lay out this bow, Dean did. Never occurred to me the check the measurements regarding the center of the handle and the lengths of the limbs. For longer bows, 64"-66", I make the lower limb 1 1/2" shorter than the upper (that difference less on shorter bows, more on longer ones). There are two reasons for that. First, it makes the bow more balanced in the hand especially while carrying it, and more importantly, it moves the geographic center of the bow up from the center of the handle to the center of my hand pressure on the handle when shooting, just under where the arrow passes. Placing the geographic center of the bow exactly where the working fulcrum is while shooting is ideal.

I did some measuring this morning and found the center of the handle was off about 1/4" toward the upper limb. That does not seem like much, but it is plenty well enough to cause the hand shock problem. I did what was needed to remedy the handle placement and braced her up for some more shooting. Hand shock problem 100% gone, and subsequent tiller measurements showed me the tiller was much closer to where I wanted it. I could also see visually that the lower limb was bending a little more at brace height. Bow shoots excellent, is quiet and plenty quick for being 52#. At 52# after shooting nearly 100 arrows, I can probably still make 50 all said and done, which is good for my OCD, lol. I did a small amount of clean up on the lower limb and removed a little more stock for good measure, prepared the limb tips for the horn overlays and glued them on (see post 179-182 for the process). Shape the nocks, do most of the sanding and shoot it some more tomorrow.

 

[Jamie]

four hours later...

The overlays with stripes are not horn but rather Diamondwood and Osage and they are attached to a 64" D/R BBO that finished a while ago. It came in underweight, so I cut it down to 64" (from 66"), gained nearly 10lbs of draw weight and it will finish out about 45# and an excellent addition to my girly weight old man bow collection. Shop closed for a couple days due to a paying job. I will have a Padawan learner (who shall remain anonymous for now) next week, too. May the force be with him.

 

[Jamie]

It is nice having some company in the shop for a change. We established a plan and got a good start on a couple of new bows today. I make one to demonstrate methods and techniques, student makes one just like it right along with me. Osage cores are ready to go and we got a good start on preparing bamboo backing. We selected a piece of Blue Hennon bamboo from Mississippi for student, a piece of Mississippi Moso for me both of which are thoroughly dried and previously flattened so all we had to do was trace the correct length pattern, cut and sand to the exact profile, tapered as far as possible with thickness sander. Next time we will finish tapering the bamboo by hand, glue up a bow. Some action shots of noob cutting and sanding bamboo backing to its width profile.

 

[Jamie]

I was able to get outside and do the final shoot in for Dean's 66" straight bow and a 64" D/R bow that I started like three years ago, the ones I just finished the nocks on and did the bulk of the sanding. They both shoot, but there is quite a noticeable difference in the bump you get from a still slightly reflexed straight long bow compared to a more compact D/R bow, even with relatively heavy arrows. The 66"er is now 50.47lbs at 28.5". The 64"er is 48lbs at 28.5". I swear the D/R bow is faster (probably need a chronograph to prove it, though) and is definitely more pleasant to shoot. Both of those things resulting from the difference in design. With only a tiny amount of sanding with 220 grit paper, the weights will not change more than a fraction of pound. So, two really nice shooting bows nearly ready for finish. After I'd had enough shooting, I got back to work on the static recurve. Lower limb being very stubborn on this one, too. Three more rounds of stock removal and bending on the tillering board with a long string and I finally got the lower limb bending enough more that I had to attempt to get a string on it. It is crucial to get this type of bow braced as early in the tillering as possible to begin working on getting the string perfectly aligned. Can be very difficult to do with all wood static or working recurves. The bow is very heavy still and my struggle was real to get it braced even with a bow stringer (which is the only way possible with the tip still being a little chunky and wide. I did manage to do it, and much to my surprise, the tips are lined up about 90% perfect. I think I can make it perfect by slightly adjusting the string groove depth in the appropriate fashion. Often aligning the static siyahs requires heating and bending slightly, which can be quite exasperating. I put it on the tillering tree and checked the weight. 50lbs at 19", so probably 75-80lbs at 28 right now and bending pretty nicely. Some minor corrections and careful weight reduction and it will be time to shoot this one, too.

 

[bowhunter1023]

That thing looks fun to shoot! Looks like a smooth shooter.

 

[Jamie]

They are very smooth. The reason being that as you approach the full draw and the string lifts off of the siyahs, the bow effectively gets longer. In the case of this bow, about 5" longer. Also, the string angle to the nocks at full draw is very low (compared to a straight limbed bow) with this type of bow. The reason bows "stack" is most often because they are short and the string angle approaches 90* at longer draw lengths, or they are just poorly designed or made and not really bending correctly.

In wooden bow building there are never ending trade-offs in design and construction. In the case of statics, the sweet, smooth draw and excellent performance, by design, invites the potential for some excessive vibration or even hand shock from the extra weight on the tips. For this reason, the tips need to be as narrow and streamlined as possible, which requires perfect string alignment, which can be difficult to achieve. I've had statics throw strings while shooting more than once while under construction. It is very frightening when it happens, however harmless.