Reflex/Deflex Oryx horn bow buildalong (hopefully!)

[robtattoo]

Anyone seen the Oryx horn bow in The bowyer's Bible, Vol.1?
Well, I have & it inspired me!

Luckily I happen to have a pair of horns from a male animal, kicking around the workshop & I'm gonna try and replicate the bow. I'm hoping to tiller it down to around 60# rather than just leave it & learn to draw 110#!

Please bear with me on this buildalong, I've never attempted to build a bow before (other than bolting some ILF limbs onto somebody elses riser) so there's a fair chance I'll be doing loads of stuff that's wrong, bad or stupid.

I'm guessing that this may take a while too, so excuse me if I don't update too often.

Moving swiftly along......

I started out with the two horns & a Yew log for the riser...
   

I roughly (that word's gonn be seen quite often, I'd imagine!) marked out a basic riser shape, with a small shelf...
   

...and started hacking it about with saw & rasp, to give me a rough (told ya!) shape...
   
   
   

Next job is tapering the ends of the riser t insert into the horns. I began rouging these out with a small carving axe & refined the shape a little further with the rasp, until both ends were a snug fit into the horns...
   
   

....unfortunately the lower limb was just a little too snug...
   

The horn now has a 3" crack running down it's length, although I'm not too concerned at present.I'm sure I can sinew it back up before I glue the 3 pieces together.

As you can see from the pics, the riser has a nice bit of natural deflex to it, unfortunately so does the top limb, soooooo along with trying to build abow from scratch for the first time, learning how to tiller horn (???) & documenting the whole debacle on here, I'm also going to learn how to bend/straighten horn (I know the principle) & create a bit of reflex in the limbs!

I'll be back with episode two tommorrow (If anyone's interested....)

[slayer1]

Very Very instresting.. Good luck with it. I will be watching for sure.

[Luke Vander Vennen]

Very interesting

Could you flip the horns around and have a natural reflex/deflex bow without having to heat anything?

[robtattoo]

Not sure Luke. The horns naturally have one thick side & one thin side. If I reverse the horns it would mean having the thin side as the back of the bow & a HUGE amount of reflex (I had a look!) Bear in mind the horns are hollow for all but about the last 8 or 9 inches I figured it'd be safer to have the tickest part on the back. I'm pretty sure I can reflex the last 12-18" without any trouble.

[Trad Man 25]

This one is going to be Interesting, for every one im sure,

im working on a TakeDown Dryad Bow, at the moment, and was going to do a buildalong, but iv decided to finish first then do the build along,    as im haveing a real hard time with the takedown,  :(  but my patients are getting better abd better each day, and now i just cant put the bow down, ( yes, this is taking days to do ) as im stuck with my appartment as a work shop, so its 2 clamps and a file, and some sand paper, and my desk,

Good Luck, and cant wait till tommorws update,

ps, dont now if i told you, but Alls Sweet in Finland, Ill be back at xmas, if your not up to much, me and Andy might come round, and fling a few arrows,  

[Trad Man 25]

And ill get my HillBow at xmas,as i got it posted to Canada, and my bro will bring it back with him at xmas,  so i cant wait to get shooting that, i got some hill broardheads, doing it hill style,     that will be fun /interesting    

ps Rob, i need to get some wood shafts for the hillbow, do you now of any where in the UK, that sells them up to a spine 70lb, i now of the hex shafts, but i dont now if there worth the money, but i might give them a try,

Thanks

James

[Walt Francis]

Rob,
Shaun did a build along a few yraers back, here is the link.  

 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=028012;p=3

The build along of JC's he refers to is the best I have seen on horn bows, I used to have it book marked but, unfortunately, can't seen to find it.  If anybody can find, or knows where  that build along is, please post the link.  

[robtattoo]

Well, the pics from session 2 are going to have to follow. The Wife has gone out & taken the camera with her    ) I've taken the horn off at an angle at the belly side, to reduce stress in that area. When the horns are glued & bound in place there should now be very little pressure on the lower belly.

Tommorrow should hopefully see a finished riser & a tillering tree all made up & ready for action! (If I get the limbs glued on, that is, & don't break anything else in the process!)

[robtattoo]

YEY! Jules came back with the camera, so here's the pics....

New riser, much longer into the horn than the original.....
 

The cut off horn ends, removing the damage.....
 
 

Fitted to the riser (just loose for now).....
 
 

It's all coming together!   :D  .....
 
 

Next job is to finish the riser, glue & bind it all together, build a tiller tree & straighten & reflex the limbs.

More to follow!

[Linc]

Rob, That is really cool looking. I'm looking forward to following this build along.