Build a Bow

[Cloudsplitter]

Great pics archeryman i especially like the stave background

[archeryman57]

Thanks cloudsplitter. The staves in the background are next on the work bench. I tried to photo the work as well as I could and am open to questions. I will post more soon.

[ARROW SLINGER]

Wall of Staves, So JEALOUS!!!!!!!!!!!

[archeryman57]

So many staves and so little time. I will post more later today.

[archeryman57]

Now that the back is clean of bark and we have one growth ring running the length of the stick, it is time to cut the thickness down. I'll put a pencil line on the edge of the limbs.


Then run it past the saw for thickness. I use two fingers as a guide on the back of the stick to keep it close to parallel with the back.




Using the belt sander will smooth the bow.


Edges sanded.

Belly sanded and following the grain for thickness.


Let's put some string nocks at the tips.

[archeryman57]

You should have noted that I put straight lines on the edge to help with tillering. This gives me a registration line to guage the bending.


I'll put a long tillering string on to start bending on a tiller stick.




Draw the string farther as it is bending quite evenly.

[ironfistcanada]

Excellent Thread A.M. Is that a couple of hedge billets in behind you??. Makes me want to start a bow.. Keep the pics coming old chap> John.

[archeryman57]

Yes John, you have a good eye. Here is a close-up for you. Those two billits and one stave on the bench.

[POINTY STICKS]

Hey I think I recognize that old stick LOL ;D

So thats what selfbow making is supposed to look like.

Looking good so far, sometime I'll have to work on theat one I started last winter.

[archeryman57]

The limbs are bending quite well and they need just a little tweeking. As you will note the limb on the right is bending a bit more than the left one.


I'll sand some off the left limb. I make even passes on the sanding pressure. counting the passes.

I put a string from nock to nock to show the amount of bend. Now that it is bending more even I can put the temporary brace string on.

Now I can show the first draw.

Here is a view of the belly. You will see that the annual rings feather out towards the tips.

This is one of the beauties of straight ash. We can use the feathered grain as a thickness taper guage.

[barryonly]

Lovin' these threads AM57, Slinger and Alpo, you guys are giving me the urge to get started on a yew stave that has been sitting beside my desk lately.

I have a glass lam bow on the go right now, but will be getting back to the drawknife and spokeshave as soon as it is done.

[ironfistcanada]

Excellent stuff AM. Just what the beginner is looking for and also a refresher course for those of us who have become rusty. I have to get me one of those belt sanders takes the scraping out of the equation. Nice Job and dont stop here . How about some more build alongs in the future. John.

[archeryman57]

I know what you mean about getting rusty. I have to stop and consider what the next step will be. For this little ash stick I want to try some arrows and apply the final touches. I have an eight year old boy that I plan to givethis to and help him get to do some shooting.
There is a crooked stick of hedge apple by me now that I plan to get to work on soon. It looks promising.

[huntwisely]

Can't wait to see how it is finished - stain, oil, or sprayed on camo .... lol

[archeryman57]

I have been drawing the bow part way to teach it to bend. Checking the draw weight on the bathroom scale it is drawing 10lbs at 10" and 15lbs at 15". My goal weight that I want is 15lbs at 20", so I will not draw the stick farther than 15lbs. Drawing past the desired weight will put undo stress on the wood.

These photos show the set that the stick has taken.


Now I have taken the measurements to calculate the stresses on the limbs. The tip being 0 distance and marked at 5" intervals on up to the fadeouts at 20". Width is in mm and thickness in thousands of an inch. Plugging these numbers in to the formula, Stress is equal to the distance devided by the width times the thickness squared. I can see that one point on each limb is very close to the other. Now I will input this stress value to the other points to see what the thickness should be to make an even stress on as much of the limb as possible. This is assuming that the wood is homogenous, which can be a rough assumption.
D is the first row, W is the second row and the third is thickness. The fourth row is the existing stress value. You will note that the highest stress is at 20" on theupper limb and it is the same as the 10" mark on the lower limb.

Morris is helping me with that one.




After plugging the stress value all the way along I can see how much has to come off the belly and at what points to take it off.


The numbers under the metre stick that I have circled are the amounts to come off the thickness.
I figure that by fine tillering the weight will come in at close to the 15lbs at 20" that I want. So I'm am back to the sander and scraper.