The Pictures and captions will explain it all.... 1400mm Length I got a gift from a good which consisted of two black locust staves. The hatchet was incredebly usefull for removing large ammounts of wood Scraping away the outer growth rings and getting a smooth clean back You can see a bit of a 'snake'. Optimistically we could say it gives it a bit of character and it one of the joys of working with non uniform natural wood Two of the most valuable tools at my disposal. Pretty much an assential. Rasp and Hatchet. But lets not forget the unsung hero, the knife. But the knife plays a bigger role later on when the hatchet begins to retire Look carefully and the you'le notice the snake shape of hte bow. As it has dried, the wood has warped slightly and the string doesnt always run directly along the centre Handle has been added in. Not finished in this picture
You are a man of many talents my friend, one more group I need to keep up with now lol.. The Flat bow is an early type I believe used from prehistory up into the viking age, if I recall correct.
Yep, most commonly/ last place seen in general use being America. The best bow design. If i had the time and money, i'd finish by degree and then go on to learn all the trades aswell! Its a pity that at high school, you were limited to a handful of subjects and the ones that were most interesting, didn't get you into uni/tertiarry education! I've had to learn woodwork as a side project in my own time. You just gotta get out there and do you've always want to do. 55-60lb Draw weight roughly. In one of the pictures, it appears the scale reading is nearing the limit which would make it 60-65lb. The max is 75lb Note the classy outdoor furniture. Its a dryer converted into a workbench.. God knows if i'll actually be able to draw this bow! At 140ish lb i'd be pretty close to drawing double my weight. At the moment i'm getting a bit of help drawing this bow as i'm using my entire body and its just an up=down pull. A lot harder to pull when you're holding it out in front of you. Hopefully all that axe and rasp work has built me up a bit Maybe its a bit of an overkill..NZ bow hunting legal minimum draw weight is 40lb. Target shooting bows are 30lb. The general agreed comfortable hunting weight is 50lb. 60lb for big fellows who want to lose/damage their arrows! I heard 50 lb bow and a decent arrow will pass through a while-tail deer. I don't think i'll be hunting anytime soon and i might have to blunt metal tip my arrows to stop them from going through the fence/or breaking on impact. But hey its a good zombie/intruder defence weapon. 30lb bow with a good arrow will go straight through a human i've read.
Burlap Backing This involves getting a strip of burlap/hessian fabric and gluing this onto the back of the bow. The reason for this being making it less likely to blow up basically. The back of the bow has a lot of tension acting on it and this takes it toll on the wood, if now properly tillered or an uneven surface, spliters will pop up and then the domino effect will kick in.... This 'backing', keeps any potential splinters down and hopefully makes the bow pretty much indestructable. Hessian is fairly thick and the cost of having a fabric backing usually is that it does add volume to the bow and does slow it down a bit so ideally you want something as thin as skin. Silk is very good. Hessian is cheap as with a 1800mm x 15mm strip costing only $1.20 @ around $8 per metre The glue turns a nice yellow as it dries. It makes the wood look like 'Osage Orange!!'. Unsure as to how the hessian looks when its all dried up. Hessian fabric isnt something you use for aesthetics i might add! Perhaps a bit of spray paint needs to be done...We'le see
can't wait to see how it turns out
Burlap backing, is cut back cleanly. Brown burlap texture looks quite 'primitive' i think. Reminds me of snakeskin for some reason Final stage of long string tillering. In this picture, this is how strained the bow will be when it is strung up aka the default position. Once this stage has been successfully met, the bow can then be strung up with its proper bowstring and then short/standard tillering can begin. This is where the fine tuning takes place String is make from 3 plys of linen thread. Very tedious work but you want to ensure you have a well made string. Shown in video footage. (Coming soon) String wax is applied and is fitted on the bow. Stringing the bow. A vital moment. Fairly scary and quite difficult. (Video Footage coming soon)
Obviously stringing it was a task. When you are doing long string tillering, you are using you're entire body and most importantly, your legs. The only way i can manage to string it is by using my legs. Initially around 60lb around the time of initial stringing. Bow has taking in a bit of string follow after putting it up on the tillering tree. Basically you know how you have the different stages of deformation with elastic and plastic deformation. Well, some of the time, when you bend it, it will be nearing the plastic deformation area and when the strain is lifted, it doesn't go back to its original position fully. In case ur wondering This lowers the draw weight of the bow and i believe it has lost around 5lb. Still unfinished. Fine tuning stage
The tiller shown in the last post is actually quite unbalanced. The left limb has a weak point where it is bending too much. Fine tillering is a lengthy and delicate stage. Bow weight has dropped down to around 55lb as opposed to the rough 65lb is originally was. I wouldn't be surprised for a drop down to 50lb after tillering
-=Final Update=- 1400mm - 55" This aint quite a longbow. Its still a 'shortbow' imo. Draw to the Chest at 25". Its far from perfect though. Its taken quite a bit of string follow and the tips are far from narrow. Draw weight is nice but as i said its not the most efficient bow. Its serviceable but it wouldn't be my first choice. That said, its still powerful. 50lb draw weight.
nice job
