Swissbow r/d Longbow Build

[Crooked Stic]

Get yourself a drum sander before you sling a big chunk of wood and screw up yourself or someone else. If you got to use the router take very-very light passes.

[Robertfishes]

turmoiler, I used a router table and a #7807 bit to build a couple of forms. Binghams Projects sells some very nice aluminum plugs only $18 with clamps.    http://www.mlcswoodworking.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/smarthtml/pages/bt_flush.html

[Matt.]

Schmidtster : The length of the bow is going to be 66".

We used the excel table provided by swissbow on their website (available in the download section "weight table glass longbow".)

   

We are aiming at a final bow weight of 48 pounds, but at Andres Stockli's recommendation, "For my personal bows I tend to go like ten pounds heavier than the chart says. So I can make the limbs" (from an email in which he kindly responded to a few question we had)

So we are building the bow at 55 pounds on the chart and hoping to shave that down to 48 pounds.

We are going with 4 lams, outer lams 0.085" parallels and inner lams 0.085" 0.001 tapered. From Andres : "I mostly use a total taper of 0.002 - 0.004 and I distribute it on the core lams. Choose the glass thickness in a way that you get a wood to glass ratio somewhere between 1:4 and 1:5. After that you can start to distribute the lam thickness according the points I mentioned above and you'll be fine"

KellyG : Thanks! We have experimented with this sort of wood combo for our HBI bows. If you are interested, I can perhaps post some pictures of these.

wood carver 2 : We have to agree with you now. If the last pass didn't rip the wood apart, we would not have learned... I think your idea of a handle is a good one. We could easily temporarily glue on a handle to make it safe. Anyhow, we won't be using the router method for risers in the future, we are looking at getting a sanding drum as Crooked Stic suggested.

More to come,

Matt & Tycho

[KellyG]

You have to ask if I want to see pictures of a bow. Let me think on it, heck yes!

[Matt.]

KellyG : Alright then! I'll have some pictures for you soon.

So we had already placed our order for the glass, lams and glue some time ago. We tried getting ahold of Kennym, but through some breakdown in email communication, we never heard back. This turned out to be a good thing, since we learned of a bowyer that lives much closer, Rodney Wright (http://www.wrightarchery.com/) so as to reduce the cost of shipping and the issue of border taxes and such. (We live in Quebec, Canada) He supplies bow building materials. He has a small list of some of the things he sells on his site, but it is best to call or email to find out everything he has.

So we ordered:

- 4 x 0.040" clear fiberglass
- 4 x 0.085" Parallel Chakote laminations (this is the beautiful red wood shown as the demonstration    Rodney\\'s Lams  )
-4 x 0.085" tapered Ash 0.001"/inch
-1 pint set of Smooth on epoxy

We received everything quickly:

   

The wood is really nice, we only had one concern, one ash lamination ( the bottom one, at the top of the lam, towards the right side, I'll try to get a better picture soon) has a knot on the edge, leaving some empty space. Since it is at the butt end of the taper, it might leave a tiny gap once the bow is made. Is this an issue?


The Chakote lams are beautiful and will go well with the pink-red arariba in the riser:

   

Here is biggest concern. We ordered a 1 pint set of Smooth-on epoxy. Rodney sent us this quantity, but in tupperware containers... He had not advised us of this beforehand... We are concerned about how well the epoxy will store in plastic given that it is rather permeable to gasses over time... We feel that for 35$, we should be getting the epoxy in the usual 1 pint metal canisters. We haven't contacted Rodney yet about it, we figured we would ask you guys what you thought first.

Other than this, the service from Rodney was excellent. He was easy to get ahold of and very personable.

   

   

Let us know what you think! Thanks!

More to come,

Matt & Tycho

[Glunt]

On the chipped lam, I would chop of 1/2" (or whatever it takes to get rid of it) and do the same to the one it will mate to.  At .001 taper it is a tiny, tiny stack reduction.  It looks like you have length to play with.

[joekeith]

Rodney is a good man, and a fine bowyer.  Talk to him if ya got a problem.