I just ordered this seven pound book from toddsmithco.com at a great discount. I'm hoping to better understand laminated bow design. At 700 pages, I'm looking forward to this "gold mine of traditional archery how-to, bow theory, and general information."

I'll post when I receive the book, meanwhile I'll continue to practice engaging back tension and pulling through the shot.

If you read and understand the methodology and principles he so meticulously explains in the book you will know why these are some of the best shooting traditional longbows ever built.

That's why I bought it too. But if you go deep into that mine take a canary with you, cuz I think he may have ran low on oxygen a time or two :) Lets just say there's a few things I'm glad I tested for myself. It does have plenty of good info in it. You'll like it.

It has a little more information than I can digest but for some, I'm sure it is interesting reading.

I also found it to be overwhelming at times. Went back thru with a highlighter pen . John

Been trying to understand the trapezoidal design of the early Grumley's and build an all wood static design. John

I have really enjoyed the book so far has a GREAT DEAL of good information in it. Got the book for Christmas from my son have skimmed through it and now am going back through reading and highlighting. An all wood bow with trapped limbs and static tips is what I am chasing as well.

Back when Jack first came out with book $80.00 now on close out sale $45.00, I always would have liked to have gotten one of his bows. Good luck Gray Goose

That’s why I have been a huge fan of Jack B Harrison all these years. Here is my Siberian Wolf. A rare(ish) bow.

A leftie in a Siberian Wolf might be more rareish bow in 45# @ 28” and 66”-68” long. Nice looking

I received a copy of Jack Harrison's book today from toddsmithco.com. It only took 13 days in the media mail. You can get a used copy from Amazon, 'bay, or Abe Books for $140. This copy only ran me $45 with free shipping. I think it is going to be a while before I can post any kind of review, it is 8 1/2 by 11 by 616 pages.

I ordered the book to try to understand something about bow design. Now that I have the book, I am just as interested in learning who Harrison is.

Cool. I'll be interested in what you have to say about it. It's 616 pages, but the font is big and there are lots of pictures. My kind of book :^)

I have it on my desk in front of me now. I've been wanting to read through his ideas on design and tiller again. Try to get in his head a bit and better understand why and how he used some of the formulas he did. Some of it didn't compute for me last time.

"I'll be interested in what you have to say about it."

I think Harrison is Intelligent, capable, and driven. He preferred the traditional appeal of a longbow and set out to build a longbow with modern materials that was nearly as fast, or as fast as a recurve bow. A two piece design was important to him so he designed and patented a bow sleeve mechanism. Sometimes the discussion jumped around a bit and there was some repetition.

He said deflexed limbs had less hand shock when they returned to brace because the top limb faced forward and up, and the bottom limb faced forward and down. So the energy or momentum left in the limbs had a vertical and a horizontal component. The vertical components canceled each other and the forward components were reduced. (pg 159, 163) I suspect that there was also a stabilizing effect of having the string and limb tips well behind the bow and bow hand.

I read his explanation about tiller and nocking point adjustment(pg 143), and heavy chested bows (pg 169). It seemed that the effort was about getting the limbs to return at the same time so the arrow nock left without jumping up or down upon release.

I was most impressed that through record keeping a bowyer could grind limb cores to a specific thickness and lay up a stack of laminates to produce a bow of desired draw weight AND desired tiller.

I don't think I'll ever build a bow, but "Traditional Bowyer, More Unnecessary Fun" was worth reading for me because of the insight that I gained in bow design.

Thanks for your assessment, Michael. I'm going to read the whole thing again soon.

I've used various ways to affect tiller during construction from grinding lams differently, to grinding them in matched pairs but placing their butt joints in various positions relative to center, and more. Imo, the 'proper' tiller is dependent, among other things, on center location relative to where the string is pulled, so how I lay up the bow, and the tiller I hope to attain in doing so, depends on their positions. Some adjustments can be made after the bow is shaped of course, but it's nice when a plan comes together and the tiller is where you want it upon first stringing :^)

I wonder how the bow center and string center are 2" apart in the picture you posted? I wonder if he meant 'center of handle' instead 'center of bow'?

Yeah, I think he meant the center of the handle.

Nice looking bow.

Should be a very interesting read. Im sure with all of the designs and performance details he'll have a lot of ground to cover. Sounds like a one of a kind resource.

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