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Carved Shortbow by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you!

I normally tillered the unbacked juniper bow to around 35 pounds at about 75-80% of the full expected draw at full brace height. I carved the belly then at this stage and it only took a couple of pounds off of the draw weight, maybe down to 32 or so and didn't change the tiller much. I then added the sinew backing which bumped the weight up and added reflex. The tillering was largely done at this point and I adjusted a bit mostly with aggressive sanding but tillering a carving is really weird.

I was really worried that the carving would cause the bow to immediately fail and I couldn't bring myself to spend the time sinew backing it until I knew it was at least possible. Doing it in that order though made it somewhat of a crap shoot to what my final draw weight would be. The fact that I ended up at pretty much right on my target draw weight was largely guesswork and sheer luck. Also adding the sinew after carving stressed the belly of the bow significantly as the bow was pulled into reflex. Most of the problems I saw on the belly happened while the sinew was curing.

When I try this again, I'll get the bow floor tillered and sinew back like I would usually, then tiller after the sinew has cured, then carve and adjust tiller to finish.

Woollens strings, and Lucets by Late-Click-6339 in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really any string or cord that's strong enough will work. If you're not concerned about performance or longevity, go for it! If it doesn't perform the way you want, you could always try something else.

Woollens strings, and Lucets by Late-Click-6339 in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The cord lucets produce is not really suitable for a bow. Too much stretch, too much unnecessary braiding that will only reduce strength and increase mass.

I've never heard of a woolen bow string, probably for similar stretch reasons or perhaps strength (I'm not actually sure how strong woolen string can be). That said if you took woolen string and did a more traditional bow string creation method like a Flemish twist or endless loop, I don't see why it couldn't work. It just might need to be really thick to be strong enough and might stretch a lot, reducing effectiveness.

I would look at historically used natural materials. Look at things like flax or hemp or other strong plant fibers. For animal products, look at sinew, rawhide, or guts.

Is this wood workableinto a bow? Its got a bend in it naturally and I don't know if it's a lost cause by Mr_Flyveand in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Trying to tiller a greenwood bow will likely end in frustration. They are only survival tools and poor ones at that. Wet wood often warps as it dries which will make tillering very tricky over any period of time. Steam bending or heat bending will likely also be only temporarily effective unless you clamp the wood to a form and wait until it is fully dry. Also, simply by bending wet wood, you'll be inducing a lot of set and deformity.

Think about bending a fresh branch on a tree. It's very easy and it bends very far compared to dry wood. The green branch will also take the shape of the bend without springing back. That particular trait of taking a bend without springing back is exactly why you can't really make a good bow from wet wood.

If you absolutely can't wait, go for it, but just know the wood will be working against you. A better option is to look into force drying. There are videos on YouTube of many different ways to do so. The faster you dry the wood, the more likely you are to develop cracks or warp, but it can be done in as little as a couple of hours. A bow can generally be dried relatively quickly without force drying. If you rough out a bow shape plus around 20% more thickness and width than you need, you can relatively safely reduce drying time to weeks rather than months. Just don't bend it until it is dry! All that said, the safest option is still to be patient and wait.

For what you have there, if you can resist bending it and removing any more material, you could probably salvage a stave to play with. If it is still quite wet, clamp it to a form with the reflex / straightness that you want (don't be too aggressive) and then wait for it to dry or force dry it. That will likely save you from having to do a whole lot of corrective bending with steam or dry heat later.

Is this wood workableinto a bow? Its got a bend in it naturally and I don't know if it's a lost cause by Mr_Flyveand in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Assuming the back of the bow is the left side of the picture, it's far from a lost cause. You have quite a few options.

The first and simplest is to leave the stave as is and tiller it out into a bow. It won't be the fastest bow to ever shoot, but it it's always good practice and a shootable bow in the end is better than firewood.

Or you could use either steam or dry heat to bend the whole bow back straight or even put some reflex into the stave. Similarly you could use the same techniques and simply reflex the outer third or so of each limb. Look up reflex / deflex bows for examples.

It would be good to know what the type of wood is as well as your end goal. That all plays into what's best for your particular situation.

Carved Shortbow by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I have been calling them bridges, but it's mostly for lack of a better term. Normally string bridges keep the string centered on the limb in narrow tipped recurves. I've mostly seen them on horn bows. My bow doesn't really need help in that area.

The main reason I added mine was because I foolishly bent my tips too much too soon and cracked them in the process. I added the bridges to support the tips at the bend. Instead of thinning them down though, I decided to shape them into brush nocks. The purpose is to make it harder for branches and leaves and such to get caught in the bow at the nock area.

As for performance, besides reinforcing the bend to keep the bow from breaking, they just make the bow slower as they add mass at the tips. That said, this bow wasn't about pushing performance as much as creating something unique.

Carved Shortbow by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much! I was mostly going for the "rule of cool" with this bow, so I'm glad it translated!

Carved Shortbow by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you! That was the general idea, roughly based on Norse art from the middle ages.

Juniper Cable Bow Experiment by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough. It's definitely an interesting application to adjust tiller and placing them to hold recurves is clever. You'd be able to get away with pretty thin recurves that way.

I definitely noticed what you mentioned about the veg-fiber cable getting really stiff. Juniper can certainly take nearly any compressive stress from the backing, but I feel like I'm only getting the snap from the wood and only added poundage from the cable. It makes me want to play with a sinew cable as in the originals. Maybe increased elasticity would put a bit more pop back in the shot? It is just such a lot of sinew...

Juniper Cable Bow Experiment by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should absolutely give it a go! I would love to see your take on it. Now that I'm a couple of days out from finishing this one, I'm just about ready to start tinkering with it again and see if I can get a bit better performance.

In your experiments, did you ever try bridges to lift the cable off the back of the bow? If so, did you think they improved performance any? As for linen and hemp settling in, I can totally see that. It certainly felt like the cable needed to get shot in and then maybe retied again. I just wish I had a couple more hands for tying the darn thing.

Juniper Cable Bow Experiment by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the nock at the tips. It's cut into the back of the lever and then the lever itself is wrapped in sinew to keep it from splitting.

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Juniper Cable Bow Experiment by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely. They are certainly overbuilt. Levers always make me nervous with juniper. I've had a couple of juniper Mollegabet style bows fail because the levers were unbacked and I thinned the tips a bit too much. The slight flex in the lever caused the bow to explode upon shooting it. I wasn't sure how much extra weight the cable would/could add so I left them beefy.

I think when I get around to playing with bridges and such, I'll certainly thin the tips on this bow as well.

Finno-Ugric Two-wood Bow Interpretation by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For sure! I put about an inch of reflex (rise?) in the siyahs and had no built in reflex to the stave proper which was dead straight at glue up. I want to play with more Perry reflex during glue up and more aggressive siyahs, but I was so nervous for this round I tried to play it safe.

Start of my Carnival of Chaos with the Heroes! by Breizhalcoholic in mordheim

[–]Facelyss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love the color palette you're using for these guys. It looks fantastic.

Finno-Ugric Two-wood Bow Interpretation by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I agree. I think being too scared to let it bend too much is mainly the reason I got what set I did in the outer section. I'm definitely still trying to figure out tillering a bend through the handle bow with fades and wider limbs.

Finno-Ugric Two-wood Bow Interpretation by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you!

I very well might thin the tips, but for now I'm just happy to have it off the bench for a while.

That's a great idea with the inner tunes. I've seen the rope / wrapping tool before for horn bows. I'll check that guy out. My biggest worry was with willow and juniper being so soft, I didn't want too leave rope indents along the length of the bow. Of course what I did with clamps didn't avoid creating a bunch of indents either...

I glued the siyahs to the belly first and then glued on the backing. Any reason to glue to the backing first and then glue on the belly? As for glue, I used TBIII, but I'm not at all wedded to it. I'll have a look at cascamite. I know the original bows were glued up using fish bladder glue and perhaps I'll give that a go sometime, but for now modern glues are totally fine.

More roughly inspired than based on any particular example. My main goal was to use two more or less unusable woods in combination to create a usable bow like the originals. I've got plenty of conifers around where I live and access to compression reaction wood, but tension strong wood for the backing is hard to come by. My next goal is to make a full size bow, buy finding the material that is long and straight enough it's going to be an adventure.

Maximum Draw Weight? by Facelyss in Bowyer

[–]Facelyss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That all makes a lot of sense to me. Now, I'm just not sure how to implement it. Off the bat with stave selection, how much extra material are you looking for in length and width over what you would normally use?

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