JT, I hope someone decides to also give their 2 cents but here is what I have come up with over the last few years. Whenever I shoot a new longbow and I like the way it shoots I try to get a few key measurements. From what I have found the two most contributing factors to a great bow is how well it was tillered and the profile shape of the bow. I have played with several bows that were “ok” bows and after the tillering was corrected were “great” bows. The profile shape also has a lot to do with how a bow shoots but I feel the is still less important than proper tillering. Now all my rambling aside, of the measurements I like to take I have seen longbows shoot great with tapers that get thinner as you go towards the tips by as much as .006/in and reverse tapers that make the tips get thicker by as much as .004/ in. I have also shot great bows with no tapers so I do not feel that has too much to do with making a great bow. I measure the thickness at the fadeouts and the thickness at the tips also and there is not direct correlation there either, but where I have noticed a fairly tight linear correlation is the length of the end of “fadeout to fadeout” to the bow ratio. For a one piece longbow is about .35 so a 62” bow X .35 = 21.7” and the ratio for a takedown longbow is about .39 and that will give you a 24” riser + wedge combination on a 62” longbow. I believe the takedown ones require a longer riser because you get less flexing out of the entire riser in a takedown compared to a one piece. Now here is where things get tricky for the takedown bows the 4.5” of overlay of the riser and wedge is determined by the jig you use to make your holes. If you are going to use the Bingham Jig you have to modify it otherwise it is crap! The holes on the jig were drilled correctly but the scribe lines were offset on each side by .040” the error on that is just over 1 degree, and one degree over 26” is about .46” off that wil make you very mad the first time you use is and your first bow has a nice zig- zag lightning bolt shape to it! How I fixed mine was take some 200 grit sand paper and taped it to the top of my table saw and ground it down the bingham jig till there was no longer a scribe make and then re-scribed a new correct mark. Now going back to the riser wedges, since I use a 16” riser the 4” the wedges hang off each end puts me at 24” fade out to fadeout. For longer or shorter bows I would think about lengthening or shortening the riser to get the desired length. Also this ratio does not take into account the HH style bows because they tend to have very short risers for the length of bow this ratio is mostly for a reflex deflex bow. As you play around you will find out what works for you and once again I am sorry about answering all the questions you did not ask but I hope you may be able to pull something useful out of it.
Topic: wedges for 3pcs longbow (Read 340 times)
