Bow for a friend- Tri-lam R/D Longbow

[silent sniper]

Good Day Everyone,
I built a special bow and wanted to show it off. This story begins about 8 months ago when my good friend and fellow trad ganger went through some very hard times. Rob suffered some great loses and I wanted to show my support. I offered to build him a bow of his liking of any design. All he had to do was tell me what he wanted and I would do the rest. He decided on a modern R/D longbow design with a pistol grip handle to match his other traditional bows. With that information in mind this is what I came up with…

The bow is 63.25” NTN following the curves. It is made up of a bamboo back, hickory powerlam, tapered maple core, and an osage belly. The riser is constructed from laminated black cherry pieces. The bow has symmetrical limbs with the arrow shelf about 1.75” above center. It draws 41# at 28"

The bow was glued up with close to 4” of reflex off the form. It retains 1.5” of reflex and takes only ¼” set after shooting.

 I finished the bamboo with a cordovan leather dye. The tip overlays are osage that has been dyed brown as well.  After the dye I added 3 coats of shellac to the bow before my final finish of semi gloss water based spar varnish. A leather handle wrap and arrow rest finished it off

This is a great shooting longbow, holding a consistent 175 fps with 10 grain per lb arrows. It is as smooth and shock free as can be expected with the R/D design.

I had the pleasure of gifting the bow to Rob and getting to watch his enjoyment of shooting his new bow. He loves it and has vowed to take a deer with it this fall. This was the first bow I have built for someone other than myself. I really took my time to make sure everything looked good before handing it off. This bow was a fun project and I cant wait to see what Rob does with it!

Enjoy,
Taylor

[silent sniper]

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[Flem]

Your a good man and that's a real nice looking Bow
I really like the handle, it has a 50's style profile to it.

[Crooked Stic]

That is great. Nice bow and liking the riser.

[Mad Max]

Awesome
Way to go

[Wolftrail]

The bow looks really good, great craftsmanship.  On another note I have built bows with that profile and others chimed in posting that the handle will pop off or other problems having lack of transition in the fade area.   Were they right.  Yes.!  the bows developed separation on the belly.   One bow was repairable,  I wrapped some thread and glue around the fade areas and re-tillerd. That happened on all 3 bows.

[wood carver 2]

Very nice bow. And fast too!
Dave.

[Incognito1]

The bow looks really good, great craftsmanship.  On another note I have built bows with that profile and others chimed in posting that the handle will pop off or other problems having lack of transition in the fade area.   Were they right.  Yes.!  the bows developed separation on the belly.   One bow was repairable,  I wrapped some thread and glue around the fade areas and re-tillerd. That happened on all 3 bows.

It looks like he included a powerlam in his design to prevent this.
Really nice bow. I'll bet that it shoots great.

[Roy from Pa]

Very nice job.

[Bvas]

Looks great!!!

And kudos to you for helping lift the spirits of a fellow trad Hunter.

[KenH]

Great bow -- and you're a great friend to pass on such a beauty!!   Wish I had a friend like you.

[hunting badger]

I like the bow and I've like all the stuff you have posted! Great job Taylor, other very nice bow!

[silent sniper]

Thanks for all the kind words everyone, I really appreciate it!

I have built several of this style of bow without a powerlam and it is a failure waiting to happen. There is just too much pressure in the riser area for it to hold up. I have since added a power lam to every laminate bow I make and have not had any further issues with riser delaminations. 

[Wolftrail]

Ok that's right;   you mentioned in the first post that you incorporated a hickory powerlam.  My mistake.