Tried something new, anyone else done it ?

[Flinttim]

I wanted to make a new BBO. I tapered the slat on the jointer just like Dean does,and got the bamboo all ready to glue up. But wanting to try something different on glue up I did not clamp the wood together to obtain the R/D  but using the type of jig from the video of Dean's I heat bent all the profile in. First clamping down the tips I heated the center section till if bent in a nice round shape. Then I clamped the limbs down in the same place ala the video and heated the limbs until the wood bent into shape. What I ended up with was an r/d slat of osage. After that cooled a day I glued the bamboo on with Urac clamping all along it's length. After the Urac dried a couple days I added the handle section. Gave it a few more days and tillered it. All along I was wondering what if anything I might be giving up performance wise. Well it appears I gave up nothing and maybe got a bit more than usual. This thing screams. And for whatever reason is deathly quiet. John Nail says it's "quiet as an owl"
 Anyone tried such a thing ?

[No-sage]

I've done the same thing before.

My experience differs from yours though,  I thought the bow was less snappy than the bows I've made with forced reflex.

When I tiller a bow with forced reflex, the bow will gain reflex during the early stages of tillering.  My form gives 1 1/2" reflex just after unclamping.  By the time I remove the bulk of the extra wood and start tillering the bow will have 2 1/2" of reflex.

That doesn't happen with heated in reflex and I think the built in stress makes the bow shoot faster.

[walkabout]

havent built any laminated bows yet, but i would think it a good thing to try something new, most every manufacturer has some way of doing things diferently, and thats what makes them all unique. any pics to post?

[Jesse Peltan]

If you heated it enough you might have a heat treated piece of osage.  This will increase the compression strength making the bow more snappy.  Heat treating any belly wood is a good idea because it will increase compression strength and allow the bow to draw farther.  I like heating the wood into the form, letting it cool down, and then heat treating it still in the form.  Then glue your other pieces to it.  I think this gives the best performance.

[Flinttim]

Here ya' go
   
   
 Rather than cut the handle to the curve of the bow, I laid up thin pieces of contrsting woo. Thin enough to bend with the clamping.Lower limb is 1 and 3/4 " shorter than upper. The heat treating thing makes sense. Never thought about that.I  think I inadvertantly got lucky in one regard. Limb timimg must be near perfect and I think tht's one reason for performance and also the quietness of it.

[Igor]

Great looking bow!


Glad it worked out for you...


><>

Glenn

[DCM]

Nice bow Tim.  That process works against the dogma, at least in theory, but not at all surprised it turned out good.  Alot of times I get as much performance from the crafting as from the design, generally being effective controling set as I work the bow tillering.

[Flinttim]

David, my baseline for comparing performance is the few BBOs I have made up to now.Hopefully I have gotten somewhat better at the bow craft and maybe part of the performance is in the tillering, bow limb design, narrower limb tops etc etc.Also, I would submit that clamping r/d into a bow is simply "preloading" the wood and using heat to create the r/d is still preloading the wood to some degree. If you bend a piece of steel, it's stressed, which is a type of preloading. Or maybe I'm nuts . LOL. Anyway it worked.
 The whole Genesis of this was a couple years back I was doing the Torges slat/bamboo/form/clamp thing and the slat cracked at a grain runout right near the center. Of course if you can get the thing glued up and clamped w/o it cracking , it's OK and will hold forever. But if you crack it first--- not so much !The heat gun thing seemed a safe way of doing it. Whether it helped or hurt performance was a crap shoot.But then again, I'd rather be lucky than good any day.

[No-sage]

Tim,

While my experience differs from yours, I also went about it in reverse order.

My first few BBO's were done by heating the slat into shape.  I switched to forced reflex after gaining some additional experience and skill.  I'm sure that the additional skill played a part in my better results.

One reason I stuck with the forced reflex though was the gain in reflex during tiller.  To me, that said that the reverse bending was giving the bow additional power by the bamboo wanting to pull the osage into reflex.  Set was lower and cast was better.

I've had a couple crack in the center of the handle (the thickest part),  but I've since started to get the slat closer to finished dimensions before I put it on the form.  No more problems since.

[walkabout]

looks good, i like the stippling on the grip. i found a how to for that not long ago on here, gonna try it out on my next longbow.nice contrast in the handle too. ive never tried the asymetric limb design, for fear that ill muck it up during tillering, but i might have to give it a go when i get my hands on a decent stave. the whole concept makes sense, and if it helps performance at all it cant hurt to try. any lesson learned is well worth the effort.

[Okie 1]

Tim, I've been gluing mine up as you are talking about. I feel the stress on the glue joint is the biggest factor in the reason I'm doing it. I tried it just to see, as you have, and I have found no differences in the performances of my bows. I do feel the relief of the stress on the glue joint is a benefit. I use a rubberband form to shape my core and then I glue it up and strap it down to the form to cure the epoxy.

John

[ishi1archer]

Nice bow I havn't tryed that method yet. Keep us posted on how it shoots

[Bob Barnes]

nice bow Tim...when are you going to do a boo belly bow?  
Bob

[Flinttim]

Soon I hope  Bob. I have some of those planks from the "Mammoth Log" left. (for those newer here , some years back I bought and had cut up , a 14' x 34" dia osage log)I'm working with a feller here on the Gang who grinds lams and we're working on an osage for lams trade. I send him wood and he sends me lams. Once that is consumated I'll be ready.

[Flinttim]

Ishi1archer, the bow shoots  great. I came in at about 54#. I was hoping for it to lose a bit of weight after shooting it a while but so far it  has not. I'm having to work myself up to those extra 4 pounds I'm not used to.This is the first cut in shelf I have done and so far it's all good.

[Bob Barnes]

very nice...and looking forward to the next one!
Bob