Fourth try is the charm

[Kenboy]

Since finding the Bowyer's Bench, I'm up to page 56 reading through past entries. Something finally stuck. After three R/D longbows -- a hickory/ipe/boo-backed tri-lam; an ipe/hickory-backed; and an osage/boo-backed -- all of which exploded upon stringing (I got one arrow through the ipe/hickory), I finally got a shooter.

She's 70" ntn, 1-1/4" wide at the riser, mild R/D. The belly is ipe. On top of that is an 1/8" thick lam of purpleheart that John Girardi at Old Master Crafters was nice enough to give me. For the backing I used a length of .030" clear fiberglass. No glass on the belly, just on the back. So far, I've never seen anything like that -- just a single layer of glass on the back. It makes the purple heart underneath just pop.

The riser is a lamination of scraps I had lying around from all three failures: ipe, hickory, 1/8" red phenolic, ipe (from belly to palm rest) with a zebra wood onlay on the back running from fade to fade. The riser has a recurve-type pistol grip, a radiused arrow shelf and a sight window cut to, if not (inadvertently) past, center. The tips came from failure numero two-oh, from bottom up, are thin layers of hickory/zebra/bubinga over the glass/purpleheart/ipe bow limb tip. Finally, I finished with three coats of Tru-Oil and several coats of Defthane Poly Gloss (satin over the glass). The ipe polishes like steel. Her name is "Purple Haze."

After tillering her slowly this time, I hit target weight of 50# at 28". I was amazed by how she shoots. At 20 yards she put her first 12 cedar arrows in the yellow or red, darn near the yellow. That's as good as I've ever done with my Black Widow recurve. She draws pretty smoothly and virtually no (but some -- enough to remind me she's a longbow) shock. One thing I don't like are the severe edges on the grip. They're rounded, but not enough. Also, I don't think I made the grip is particularly graceful. If you try a recurve-style grip on a board bow longbow, you have to work real hard at not making the grip look like it was just bolted on there.

If I figure out how to load pix, I'll do it. There are several random things I learned on this bow:
1. Tiller slowly and exercise the bow to the last draw point a lot -- a real lot -- before you pull the long string down another notch or two on the tillering stick.
2. Thin fiberglass (I used .030") makes a great backing, especially for newbies like me. It'll back anything and you have to work hard to break it, assuming the glue job was good.
3. I will never understand how to use bamboo so I didn't use any.
4. Always mix more Smooth On than you think you'll need. And don't put your hands on the wife's things (or the wife) until you get it off.
5. Don't get overzealous with the band saw when cutting in the sight window. If you run just a little bit too deep, you have to sand for hours to get the cut lines out. That's why my sight window is sanded past center.
6. Keep the glass covered until you're ready to finish. Dropped tools and stray hits with a dremel tool are why I finished the glass with satin. I just had to see how the glass over purpleheart came out when I pulled it from the oven.
7. To hit the 50# target weight, I hooked two 25# barbell plates to the short tillering string, and before releasing the bow from the stick to begin the next round of sanding and scraping, let the weights pull it down (slowly). When I got pretty close to 15-20", I made sure I had all my edges rounded and the horizontal taper right on. Once the weights pulled it down close to 28", I knew I hit weight. Assuming the shape looks good at that point (it better), I'm done tillering. Hopefully, I left enough on to hit weight after finish-sanding.
8. There's more collective wisdom on this website than any collection of how-to bow-making books, videos and other media out there. Thank you everyone who posted a build-along -- if only I studied my school books that intensely. And thank everyone who posted pictures and asked for tillering help (and those who gave it) -- that did more to train my beginner's eye than any written explanation of tillering. This site is a treasure.

[karrow]

there is directions here on how to post pics as well as build bows.     SO LETS SEE THE PICS  

[PEARL DRUMS]

The glass on the back is rare sight because it will overpower your core and cause fretting and compression cracks in your core. You may be the lucky winner or made one work, or it will bite you a ferw hundred shots later! You learned and thats what matters most in this hobby.

[Kenboy]

Man, the instructions on how to post the bow are harder than how to build it.

[Kenboy]

I hope I made this one smaller. Still working on reaching an understanding with Photobucket. Sorry if it's too big.

[Kenboy]

[Kenboy]

Pearl, I figured that might have been an issue, so that's why I used .030" glass -- the thinnest I could find. Also, I figure ipe and purple heart is a pretty dense combination and not easily over-powered. But what will a fret look like when it shows up?

(p.s. Back in the day, I played Ludwig drums -- the same kit as Ringo's)

[PEARL DRUMS]

They will look like horizontal cracks in the belly, generally in the working part of the limb. Sometimes they are hard to see because they are being compressed so tightly. You can unstring the bow and flex it backwards slighty and they may open up enough to see them, just keep your eyes peeled so you dont get whacked by an upper limb one day!

[vanillabear?]

[Kenboy]

Thank you, VBear. The bow took a little set, but not that much. The reflex starts at mid-limb, and after 100 or so arrows, there's just a trace of the reflex becoming more mild.

I really like ipe. It's hard to cut, but I had no idea that such a drab looking wood would polish up so nicely. The belly side of the limbs look like a fine instrument. Next time, though, I'm going to try burnishing the wood with a glass bottle neck (like slide guitarists use) before applying the first coat of Tru-Oil.

Is it always wrong to use glass on the back only? What if the glass is on thin side, like .030" or thinner?  It's just that my attempts at using bamboo were giving me the blues, and the glass seemed so predictable.

[vanillabear?]

[Kenboy]

I stuck on a calf-hair arrow rest and put 120 arrows through the bow yesterday, with no problem except wiping the idiot grin off my face. I even pulled it past my usual 29" draw several times, without issues. One thing I noticed, though, is that the draw weight seemed to drop a couple of pounds at the end of the day. But the unstrung profile looks unchanged -- no or very little string follow. I never knew how smoothly a 70" longbow draws. I guess it makes sense.

I'm gluing up the same design tonight, but with a lighter draw weight (30# or so) for my daughter. This one will have an ipe belly, 1/8" bamboo lam, a thin veneer of zebra covered with the .030" clear glass backing again, and a mahogany and phenolic overlay on the back from fade to fade. I'm making the riser out of canary wood and ipe, much shorter and less bulky to fit her smaller hand and make the limbs longer. I'll let you know how it works out.

Just got a fire hose and a cool design from Master Crafters, so it's on to recurves. I'm guessing I'll blow up a couple of those.

Anyway, thanks, everybody, for the sound advice.