Laminated Flatbow Build

[pkinneb]

Nice!

 

[Bankstick]

In reviewing this thread, that is a recurve bow. A flat bow doesn't have the curved ends. A flat bow is just that- stick and string as some call it. Sort of what Robin Hood would have used. The flat bow has flat limbs. There are also plans for a long bow that has a thicker body and a radius to it rather than the flat limbs. Will see if i can find the instructions for the long bow.

http://www.vintageprojects.com/archery/bow-plans.html

[Tpt life]

47 minutes ago, Bankstick said:

In reviewing this thread, that is a recurve bow. A flat bow doesn't have the curved ends. A flat bow is just that- stick and string as some call it. Sort of what Robin Hood would have used. The flat bow has flat limbs. There are also plans for a long bow that has a thicker body and a radius to it rather than the flat limbs. Will see if i can find the instructions for the long bow.

http://www.vintageprojects.com/archery/bow-plans.html

I am not an archery expert, but do get out after deer with a bow. There are a ton of guys calling these recurves “recurve flatbows.” Makes it sound as the distinction is between other recurves such as horn bows. 

[Chestnut]

I did a google and saw mentioned r/d bow and the word hybrid. Silly people wanting to make everything hybrid these days like hybrid woodworking.... what does that even mean!

[Chet]

hy·brid
ˈhīˌbrid/
noun
noun: hybrid; plural noun: hybrids
        
a thing made by combining two different elements; a mixture. 

[Bankstick]

In 60 years I have never heard it referred to as a recurve flat bow. A flat bow is a long bow with flat limbs. The link I gave shows a long bow with a flat back and a radius on the face. A horn bow uses horn as part of the bow in addition to wood.

Look at http://www.lancasterarcherysupply.com for all kinds of bows. Note the nomenclature. I have been there and it is one of those places, "So much stuff, so little money!"

[Brendon_t]

8 hours ago, Bankstick said:

In 60 years I have never heard it referred to as a recurve flat bow. A flat bow is a long bow with flat limbs. The link I gave shows a long bow with a flat back and a radius on the face. A horn bow uses horn as part of the bow in addition to wood.

Look at http://www.lancasterarcherysupply.com for all kinds of bows. Note the nomenclature. I have been there and it is one of those places, "So much stuff, so little money!"

Bro ain't that the Damned truth!! Luckily my bow stable is full. 

And he's correct. That's a recurve without detachable limbs. I called it a stick bow before. That's my bad.. I use it as a pejorative word for those silly bows without wheels and space guidance. They're all stick bows to me.

[Brendon_t]

On 8/1/2018 at 5:49 AM, Brendon_t said:

 but have still watched and taken interest in the builds of recurve bows.  

 

Never mind, I said it right the day.

-is quoting yourself considered quoterbating? 

[wtnhighlander]

Can one of your archery buffs clear something up for me?

How do those Japanese longbows, with unequal limbs, manage to shoot straight at all?

[Bankstick]

To answer your question, wtnh, lots of practice! I read a book by an author who is a noted archery instructor. He had a former student win a tournament and found the limbs of the compound bow were not tensioned equally! Go figure. He went on to experiment and found that "tuning" might not be as important as thought.

Ever see the samurai shoot a bow? They break all the rules of archery. They do not have an anchor point on their face anywhere. They hold the string and nock away from their face. How they do this consistently is beyond me. I think you might find this by a search on the Internet.

Brendan,  you can never have too much archery/fishing/hunting/golf/woodworking stuff. The one who dies with the most, wins!

[lewisc]

I prepared the timber for the bow this afternoon. Rather than mixing species, I’ve decided to keep it simple and use Spotted Gum for this first one. SG is a dense/hard Aussie hardwood used for flooring,furniture and more. It’s also used for tool handles. 

I cut up the timber according to the plan and using a combo of the table saw, bandsaw, Thicknesser and drumsander to get them to final size. It’s quite flexible so combined with the fibreglass, I think it should do well. Next up is shaping the riser and putting a taper on the core laminations. 

I need four 1.5mm strips. I've cut five so I’ve got one piece extra. I’ve circled a part in red. Do you think this bit of gum vein will affect the strength? I was thinking if I laminate it on the riser end, it will be sandwiched between timber and fibreglass with epoxy.. The rest of the timber is clear but I’ll need to use one of those pieces with the gum vein in the glue up. 

 

[Brendon_t]

You are hoping to have both limbs if real pulling power so I would hide that thing where it won't be carved into, in the riser.

[Bankstick]

Well on the way! A local shooting club hosts a couple of primitive archery shoots each year. That is, long bows or recurve bows only. No compound bows allowed. I attended on and several vendors had custom bows displayed for sale. The quality was second to none. They weren't cheap as there was a lot of time spent in crafting each individual bow. I had a Bear Kodiak recurve bow that I bought for $25 and sold for same. Now a Bear recurve goes for many times that. Dad always said hindsight was 20/20. Looking for the finished bow!

[lewisc]

I spent a few hours this morning making up jigs and templates for the layers of the bow.

The core laminations were tapered from 5mm to 1mm. I made a few templates for the riser. I'm mostly happy with it. There's a few spots which make me think a new one needs to be made. With pressure, everything closes up.

I ordered fibreglass strips and epoxy yesterday so I'm hoping they'll be here before the end of the week. I'll do a dry run before gluing it all together. By the end of the week, I should have a semi functioning bow.

 

 

[Bankstick]

Thanks for keeping us posted on the progress of the build. Where did  you order the fiberglass and epoxy? Take lots of precautions with the fiberglass when cutting or sanding it. Set up a vacuum system or dust collector, wear a respirator, and use an air filtration system to remove all of it from the shop. You seem right on target with this bow.

[lewisc]

https://www.ausbow.com.au/

The fibreglass is called BoTuff. I could only find one supplier over here. Either I didn’t look hard enough or there was only place. 

I’m hoping it goes well. If I cut a price of timber wrong, it can be salvaged at least in some way. The fibreglass and epoxy were $140 so it’s not the cheapest thing to experiment with. There should be enough epoxy for a few glueups though. 

[Bankstick]

Didn't notice you are Down Under, mate. There is an archery supply house that specializes in a lot of what is discussed here for bow building. Will research it. BTW, saw some Youtube sites where a bow is made from PVC pipe. Here  are two sites. Bing is a general search.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=archery+building+supplies&pc=MOZI&form=MOZLBR

http://www.makingtraditionalbows.com/

[Bankstick]

Here is the one I was looking for!

https://www.3riversarchery.com/

 

[Brendon_t]

On 8/7/2018 at 4:52 AM, Bankstick said:

To answer your question, wtnh, lots of practice! I read a book by an author who is a noted archery instructor. He had a former student win a tournament and found the limbs of the compound bow were not tensioned equally! Go figure. He went on to experiment and found that "tuning" might not be as important as thought.

Ever see the samurai shoot a bow? They break all the rules of archery. They do not have an anchor point on their face anywhere. They hold the string and nock away from their face. How they do this consistently 

Brendan,  you can never have too much archery/fishing/hunting/golf/woodworking stuff. The one who dies with the most, wins!

So my understanding is they anchor in the air, not on their face. Just as s golfer swings and swings into muscle memory stops the club head in the same place every time, so does the Archer. You don't need a physical stop as long as your "floating anchor" is always the same.

 

And my wife will have to take that last part up with you. 

Of the laundry room I made her to get my shop enclosed, I've got salt rods all over the ceiling, 5 bows hanging, reloading station, fly tying station, and two sets of spear diving equipment.. she says I'm encroaching. I tell her to start doing the laundry, and she can have a laundry room..

[Bankstick]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lwrP2ma2TU

They hold the string away from their face. I'm amazed at their consistency with this method. I'm an archery instructor with the National Archery in the Schools Program (NASP). I emphasize that consistency is the key to good archery. Any variation will cause you to miss the target.  The golfer has some control as the length of the arms help control the swing.  Centrifugal force comes into play here. Actually, the golf swing is the most unnatural movement of the human body. Baseball and tennis are more anatomical friendly.

Watch the attached video. The one that I first saw was shooting from a moving horse!

[lewisc]

A bit of catching up to do. I don't think I've been this nervous since my wedding day. There's quite a few parts to get right.

The epoxy and fibreglass came in. I prepared everything and got to glueing. It's quite thick, kind of like jam (jelly in America?)

The core and outside timber laminations needed to be joined. This stopped them moving apart during the glueup. I cut them on a 45 degree angle and used some 5min epoxy to hold them together. Sanded them back and they were good to go.

The straps and wedges worked.  A couple of gaps near the riser but nothing that is a problem. A few pieces of timber wrapped with sticky tape worked a treat to stop the straps sticking to the bow. I used tape on the form and it all came off quite easily. A good bit of squeeze out though. 

I ran it through the bandsaw to cut the taper from riser to tip. The blade needed replacing soon so it wasn't much of an issue cutting the fibreglass. The belt sander was used next to clean up all of the edges and sand it to the line. 

I cut up some walnut to use for the bow tips where the string attaches. I've epoxied them on and will get back to it tomorrow. I'll cut a few notches for a string and need to make up a tillering stick.

 

A few videos I've seen use a two part form. They put a hose in the form and inflate it to get the pressure on the lamination. If I attempt this again, I think that's a smarter way to go about it. The riser moved a little when strapping it but I think it should be fine. Everything looks parallel.

 

[lewisc]

At 1:10, you can see the different type of bow form which would probably be a smarter way to go.

 

[pkinneb]

Nice!

 

 

[lewisc]

So I'm getting into an area that is beyond my knowledge. I can cut, glue, clamp and transfer known skills but this is the part that will be challenging. 

I've ordered a 66" string from an archery store. I made up a string making jig yesterday but that's a whole other rabbit hole. 

Using a piece of paracord (probably not the best), I was able to tension the bow to get an idea of the shape. Without using a tillering stick, I can already tell the bow limbs pull differently. I'm not sure what this will mean, whether it's shaping one of the limbs a bit more but more research will come. I might have to join an archery forum to get some more advice. 

It's quite heavy to pull back so I feel like the timber might have been too thick on some of the laminations. Another piece of gear to pick up will be a bow weight scale. Combined with the tillering stick, that should tell me the weight of drawing it. There's also a book I'll probably buy which can hopefully tell me more about a few things. It's hard because I have no reference for what it should be like.. 

So, next steps are to shape the riser and research as much as I can about the limbs. I've been a bit paranoid (probably for good reason) about something snapping and hitting me in the face. The bow has a surprising amount of flexibility.

[pkinneb]

No help on the string but it sure looks nice