ELB horn nock alternatives

[The Gopher]

Hello all, i am working on an ELB made out of hickory. i want the look of the classic horn nocks but are there any cheaper alternatives? I ahve a hard time paying 20-30 bucks for preshaped nocks when i only paid 1/4 of that for the board i'm making the bow from. would ebony make strong enough nocks if the grain was oriented the right way? has any one else used a horn nock alternative? thanks a lot, Dan.

[Shaun]

I have used horn overlay style nocks like a regular long bow, worked fine. You could also use any dense wood or antler as overlays.

[Jason Jelinek]

I've used whitetail antler on a 45#@29" yew longbow with fast flight string.  You'll have some pith in there but it's definitely less expensive than horn.  By the way, the $30 for the pair of shaped horn nocks is cheap when you consider I spent over 5 hours shaping, sanding, and polishing my antler nocks.

If I build another yew longbow, I'm definitely going to get those finished horn nocks.  I don't have a ton of time and they look great.

Jason

[Pat B]

Making horn nocks was the hardest part of the building process on the 95# yew war bow I built. I wouldn't do it for $30 for anyone. d:^)
   I have made horn nocks with deer antler and they worked out well. Overlays work also and self nocks work with hardwoods.    Pat

[robtattoo]

Gopher, PM me with your shipping address. I have a pair of Horn nocks from an old broken bow of mine. They've still got some wood glued into them, but I'm sure a man of your caliber could clean 'em out!  :D  You're welcome to them, if they're any good to you.

[Lost Arra]

I'm just finishing a bow with ebony overlays.

Warning: Do everything possible to "degrease" the ebony or it will resist taking a finish coat. I think I've finally got it whipped but I won't use ebony again in spite of the fact they look good.

[horseapple]

Dan, another alternative is to use some type of hardwood instead of horn, my favorite wood to use is snakewood, below is a link showing one finished.

  http://groups.msn.com/Horseapplesbowpage/bamboobackkedlongbow.msnw  

Bob, next time you use Ebony as overlays, rub a thin coat of super glue over them, it'll fix you up.

JD

[Lost Arra]

thanks for the tip JD  

[Jason Jelinek]

Nice looking tips JD.

Jason

[Tom Leemans]

Now those are cool JD!

BTW that's one whopper of a swamp buck! Don't they have blaze orange Cardinals caps?

[horseapple]

If they do Tom let me know:)