"home-crafted' bows?

[islandpiper]

Man, it drives me nuts when people come into the shop and want to make a violin at home.......mostly because they turn out crap...and ask me 24 hours of questions over the first year of construction trying to make a one of a kind STRADAWHOOSIOUS.

So, here I am, shuffling my feet and asking:

What do i need to do to make a bow at home? i admire some of the fancy recurve bows I've seen. I have some tool and machine skills and access to many different timbers and glass and epoxy, and lacquer, etc....

Are there plans? instructions? is it a job a violinmaker can take on and actually get a STRADAWHOOSIOUS bow out of at the end of a year of stumbling over various issues?

I'm betting that somebody here makes bows.......

piper

 

[oldsparkey]

Several folks do but for some of them you will need to sit back and relax. When the sun shines across the pond they will see what you are asking.

Chuck

 

[tx river rat]

Piper
What kind of bow are you wanting to make.
A glass backed recurve I would suggest going to Bingham archery they have everything you need plus instuctions, now if you want to make indian flat, bows horse bows all wooden bows I will send you a list of books to get .
Ron

 

[islandpiper]

Ron, I'm thinking a recurve bow, probably because the necessity of finding several smaller units of good timber is easier than finding one piece of perfect timber.

I'm not an archer. My vision might limit me to point and shoot, for fun. But, as an evening hobby after shop work all day, building a bow might be fun.

If the next president takes away all the handguns I might want one of these under the bench at work.

So, advice, please? Should a new builder/hobbyist build a recurve or long bow? Assume that i have the tools, machinery, workspace and skill set to do this, just never have before.

Piper

 

[jdupre']

Ron's advise is right on. I'm sure you have the skills needed- no problem there. With a Bingham kit, you can have a great shooter right out of the gate.

Something to think about. Bows are unlike most any other objects made of wood and/or glass. Every time you draw a bow, you are subjecting it to about 90% of it's design limits. About like picking up 180# with a 200# test rope--- thousands of times. I think a bow is a marvelous machine.

 

[jdupre']

Piper, give me a holler if you need any help.

Joey

 

[tx river rat]

Piper
How tall are you and are you long armed are short armed.
Length is the bigest factor in a string bow stacking reason for the questions.
Ron

 

[islandpiper]

ron, five-foot-eight......typical stubby Anglo-Saxon.....Scots/Danish/Welsh.....no basketball player. Pleased to say, however, that my arms go all the way from my shoulders to my wrists with no blank areas.

piper

keith

 

[Kayak Jack]

His knuckles drag the ground. Piper San, he needs the inch measurement of our arm length. Don't be shy.

 

[tx river rat]

no the reason for asking you can get bye with a 60 inch bow . at 5 8 you should be about 28 inch draw. My personal preference is the recurve and you might think about the take down they have, that way start off light weight then as you build up you can build another set of limbs in a hevier weight and use the same riser.
A DISCLAIMER bow are worse than whiskey and women about being habit forming so proceed at your own risk.
Ron

 

[dawallace45]

Piper
It is addictive , as Ron said all the instructions as well as plans for a Laminated bows can be had from Bingham’s Projects , they also have all the bits and pieces , Fibreglass laminations , timber laminations , riser timber as well as epoxy's and every other bit of gear you would need , I found the instructional DVD very good , I bought the DVD and plans for the lot , One piece recurve , take down recurve , Longbow , Reflex / deflex longbow and take down long bow , probably the easiest bow to start with is the Longbow and with a bit of care you can end up with very good product first up , I'm very happy with my bow and was tickled to have another archer try my bow a few weeks ago and offer to swap his brand new factory longbow worth about $350 with mine and throw in another $100 to sweeten the deal , of course by the time I bought the laminations and made up a bow press and fire hose pressure system along with a laminating oven I could have bought a bow but as I intend to make quite a few eventually it will be worth it long term .

I found Bingham’s very good to deal with , good advice , good products and fast service , generally if I put in a order first up in the morning it’s dispatched by that afternoon and I get the stuff in about a week , not bad from the USA to Australia , I don’t get that fast a service from Brisbane or Sydney
You most probably have the gear to make your own laminations but if you buy all your laminations and tapers from Bingham's first off then you can use theirs as templates to make your own from there on

David

 

[islandpiper]

OK, i found some bowmaking instructions on line and went right to work. this isn't quite what I had in mind. I'll keep trying

Piper

 

[tx river rat]

what draw weight is it

 

[islandpiper]

Right around 2 1/2 pounds, not counting the ice cream. piper

 

[islandpiper]

Continuing the list of stupid beginner questions:

1. do i really need a heat box?
2. will RAKA epoxy work when building a bow? works good for yaks.
3. will the same sort of glass i used on the pirogue work as the backer glass on a bow?
4. I have a bunch of really hard, dark tropical hardwood, plenty long. Can I make blanks out of that? Not sure what it is but it is straight and heavy .
5. Do i really need a blueprint to make a bow? or can i just wing it and work of some pictures......like those i got from jdupre"?
6. I saw a YouTube of a guy using a packaging wrap and clamps, no air hose.....any opinions on that?

thanks, piper(meddling in things he doesn't understand)

 

[jdupre']

Here's my take on it:

1. Yes, but it doesn't have to be fancy. Mine is just a long plywood box with two cheap hair dryers heating it.

2.Don't know about Raka epoxy. It might work, but I would experiment first.

3. Bow glass is all longitudanal fibers. Any cross fibers tend to weaken the glass over many bending cycles.

4.Tropical hardwood is fine as long as it's not too oily.

5. You really need a blueprint for at least the first bow. Bow draw weight is a tricky thing. In the longbows I make, +/- .003 " in the finished limb thickness is equivalent to 1# of bow weight. That's one and a half times the thickness of a human hair!

6. Clamps are fine if you have enough of them and put some kind of pressure lamination of metal to even out the pressure.

 

[islandpiper]

Will my 1996 GMC Suburban laminating oven work? It runs about 130-degrees F most of June, July and August.

Piper

 

[jdupre']

Will my 1996 GMC Suburban laminating oven work? It runs about 130-degrees F most of June, July and August.

Piper

It probably would work. You could even throw a piece of black plastic over it for good measure. The word is amoung bowmakers that the bow should be cured at a temperature higher than it will ever experience in it's life. My oven runs about 165 degrees.

 

[tx river rat]

Piper
My heat box uses light bulbs and a thermostat, on the first bow do it bye the numbers , then start to play if you want to, but remember when you pull that bow back and it snaps will put a hell of a knot on your head :lol:
I built one longbow using metal strip and clamps and it can be done but the fire hose is so much better for consistent pressure.
Let me look tomorrow and I will see if I still have all the stuff , use to have a mould for a reflex deflex long bow and a take down limb mold and a oven might make you a deal you can't pass up.
Ron

 

[Kayak Jack]

Piper San, listen carefully to what these two guys tell you. A bow breaking in our hand would not be fun.

If you really want a knot on your head, just let me know; I'll be down in a day or two and take care of ht at assignment. Joey already promised to put me up and feed me if I did a really good job of it.