Well, this is how she started back in April. Bamboo backing, yew in the center, and osage for the belly.

My lam grinding jig in action.

All clamped up...

I took over a hundred pictures of this build, so if there's anything ya'd like to see, or discuss, just ask.

Grinding for horn tip application...

Pieces cut from blocks of water buffalo horn.

Ready to glue...

Belly facets

Facets on the back

Braced, on the tree, after tillering. As I mentioned, I've got a lot of pics, just trying to condense this some... :)

Drawn...

Resting quietly.

By the way, she's 58" ntn, 57# @ 28", weighs 15 ounces right on the money, is balanced in the hand to carry and at full draw, and shows an equal tiller... oh and Jim, she shot the line like nobody's biddness from the very first arrow she sent down range. I was so proud for her :)

Oh, here's a couple of the finished tips...

This was prior to the dye job.

Thats about as good as it gets, thanks for sharing. greysky

GORGEOUS!!

-Joe

WOW, I'm truly impressed, great craftsmanship. John

Oh, also saved to favorites!

That's a sweet looking bow ! You sure ihave a lot of confidance in that glue for those tips,school me here I would have never thought that would hold up,its not like a overly and all the stress is at the glue joint.

Oh my!!! Pretty SWEET!

Looks great to me. Frank

wow!

very nice

Thanks for the kind words fellas.

Wildman, those tips do look like they should be a cause for concern, but they really aren't. Under tension, the string is pulling them together, not apart. I've made tips like that on a lot of bows, some over 70 pounds, and never had a single issue. A good glue joint helps. Even though I grind both surfaces with a 50 grit belt, when they're done, they're fairly smooth, so I fully groove them with a toothing plane blade... just the blade held in my hand... as deep as the teeth will cut. That way the joint cannot be starved of glue in any area. I do the same thing for the gluing surfaces of the handle piece, and since I have, I haven't had an issue there either.

That's awesome Jeff,really nice.I too had some reservations about those tips,but I guess you've got them figured out.

Thanks for sharing Jeff it sure is a looker.

Nice job Jeff!

Great looking bow Jeff.

I am confused by the picture of the bamboo, yew and osage laid out. why does the osage look so much shorter than the yew but on the finished bow the osage looks like it goes the whole length to the tips? What thickness did you have your yew core? And was it tapered? I've tried one trilam like that but mine was maple (where you yew was) and osage.

I have done tips like that as well but when I have done them the horn was about half that and I tried to have the string cross the wood under the string grove a bit more. My though for doing that is seeing pictures of how the old english horn nocks were done. The wood yew core extends up under the string groove and not just horn. Maybe yours crosses the wood more at the tips than I can see when it is braced?

Gaur, yes, the osage slat was half the length of the yew and bamboo. I sliced it in half edge-wise in order to make two pieces, then Z-spliced them.

Actually, to be perfectly accurate, I cut the Z-splice into the osage, THEN sliced it in half, which produced two pieces with mirror images of the Z-splice. Does that make any sense? I'll post pics.

The yew core was ground .20" parallel from one dip to the other, then tapering to .125" at the tips... prior to glue-up.

The osage was ground to .20 parallel.

Here's the short piece of osage with the Z-splice cut into it.

Then I ran a line down the side to follow with the bandsaw...

Which created two pefectly-mirrored images of the slats.

Then with one flipped over and end-to-end, they fit together nicely :)

Didn't line up bad either...

I was concerned about the Z-splice while bending it for glue-up because I wanted to inflict considerable deflex... but it held. I glued the splice with Smooth On.

Here's a better picture of the tip to show you how the string groove cuts through the osage a little bit.

Thanks for the answers Jeff. Been busy and hadn't gotten back to the thread

Great job on a fine looking bow.

TTT for Flatlander...

Awesome looking bow.

Fine job on it.

That bow and those tips are sick. Very nice.

WARNING - FLAGRANT DISPLAY OF IGNORANCE -

So with an all-wood construction like that, do you eliminate the need for an oven/hot-box?

Dang, that's cool... Looks like Id' better start cruising the local yard sales for clamps this year...

Nope, Jeff bakes 'em. :)

Chuck, you building a tri-lam?

I've done them both ways... heat and at room temps. I use Smooth On glue. I feel a little better about them if heat is used, but I've never had a problem with a bow cured at room temperature either so....

Rog, Chuck wants to make a bow, but hasn't decided for sure yet which type. He said he was going to go see Roy, and he makes mostly backed bows and tri-lams, so I threw this out there to give him an idea of what's involved with them.

Actually, I meant to reopen this thread in the Pa conference :^) so I dont know if Chuck will show here.

Very well done

What do you mean when you say the Yew lam is .20 from one dip to the other?

bretto

Wow. Very nice.

It has a parallel midsection .200" thick that extends from one dip or 'fadeout', through the handle area, over to the other dip/fadeout... from there it tapers in thickness to the tips.

Thanks Jeff. I figured you were talking about the fadeouts. Just thought I would ask for clarification.

Great looking bow by the way!!

bretto

That is one OUTSTANDING BOW! would have been nice to be fly on the wall to see You build it! GETTUM GO! Batman

Wow that's nice!

SWEET BOW. >>>----> At some point I am going to have to try this. When my work gives me the opportunity maybe... Question, how long did it take you (how many bows) before you had a form that worked out like you wanted?

The keys to early success with any type of bow is to use the best material, a proven design, and follow good instruction.

With this type of bow, and method, I was happy with my second attempt, but I had made bows of other kinds previously, from glass bows to selfbows, so did have some experience. For this kind of bow, I initially followed Dean Torges' instructional dvd 'Hunting the Bamboo Backed Bow' to the letter... and credit him for my early success.

My first glass/wood laminate d/r longbow was a success because I used a proven design and followed instructions I got from Bingham Projects.

My first selfbow was of osage and was a shooter, but not tillered as well as it could have been. They gradually got better and after a handful of them, I suppose they were good bows. I never broke a bunch of selfbows early in my bowmaking like some folks because of what I mentioned earlier... good material, design and instruction. Again, I credit all of my early success with selfbows to Dean Torges as I followed his tutelage offered in his book Hunting the Osage Bow. (different resource than the dvd mentioned above).

nice bow jeff !

Beautiful!

If you have already registered, please

sign in now

For new registrations

Click Here