I haven't posted work here in awhile, but I have stayed busy filling up my wall pegs. I made my first reflexed longbow, first kid's bow and my first forward riser Hill style. These are all posted in my Gallery at:
http://dickwightman.com/archeryactivity/bowbuilding/gallery/bowsmade.html Then I took a few weeks to upgrade my shop by having it rewired, painted and new lighting installed:
http://dickwightman.com/archeryactivity/bulletinboard/archerybulletinboard.html I’ve been working on two bows at once ever since I finished the shop work. One was a case of working with a teenager who had expressed an interest in bow building while we were at shoot this summer, the other was an attempt at a heavier bow than usual for me. I undertook this one because several of the Hill list members had been after me to see what I could to at a heavier weight if I gave it a try.
The teen, Jesse Havens, is still in high school and a non-driver, so doing that bow had to stretch over a period of time as we fit working sessions into his school schedule. I did the planning and a lot of the critical work, but Jesse got hands on experience at each stage of the operation and next time will go it on his own. His bow, which he named “Bamboo Beauty”, came out very nicely.
Layup:
.040 black glass
.110 lamboo parallel
.115 lamboo tapered .0015
,110 lamboo parallel
.040 black glass
Total Glass: .080
Total wood: .335
Riser 16” zebrawood
Finished bow: 68” 45@28
Here are some pix:
The second bow, the heavy one, I decided to make a forward riser, using red elm on a laminated bacote riser. It came in at 57# and surprisingly smooth at that weight. I named it “Orion” for the constellation Orion the Hunter.
Layup:
.050 clear glass
.090 red elm parallel
.090 lamboo tapered .0015
.090 lamboo tapered .0015
.090 red elm parallel
.040 clear glass
Total glass: .090
Total wood: .360
Riser: 18” laminated bacote
Bacote limb tips
68” 57@28
Here are pix of it:
Orion was especially interesting to me because on the first layup of a forward riser that I did, Forward Scout, I immediately noticed that the clamps fit and accommodated the shallower, smoother fade curves of the forward riser much better than they did the steeper fade curves of the more traditional riser. I took to referring to the forward riser pattern as an "overpass riser" and the traditiional riser as a "ski slope" riser.
Somewhere between my second and third forward riser bows, it dawned on me that the forward riser layup just as it comes off the form, could equally well become a standard belly mounted riser. This would involve two very simple changes: 1. At the point where the bow becomes a finished bow blank, i.e. no shaping yet, I could simply draw a perpendicular line from the center of the overpass riser downwards, then place a center-finding ruler on that line and move it down until it showed 4" (standard longbow hand flat), draw that line, then run the blank through the drum sander and sand down to the drawn line. This results in a pretty standard looking belly mounted riser, just with gentler curves on the fades. The only other difference or change between forward and rear riser is simply the cutting of the nocks, angling them appropriately for the riser you're building.
Here are Orion and Bamboo Beauty, side by side, showing the use of the riser pattern on both back and belly:
Just for the record, no, none of these bows are for sale.
Topic: Two New Bows (Read 502 times)
