Well, after building a couple Bingham style recurve bows, I really wanted to try a longbow. I don't know which style of bow I like to shoot better, so why not try them all, eh? I like the looks of the deflex/reflex longbows, especially the ones that many have built and shared on this forum. I appreciate all the help and inspiration that I got from people that I contacted here. So, I decided that my plan was to attempt to build a 66" r/d longbow similar to the one that
Robertfishes built and shared on this forum. I really liked the looks of it.
I posted a lot of pictures of this build on
my blog , so that I don't have to re-size a ton of pictures, but here are a few of the highlights.
I had to build a new form, and for that I have KennyM to thank for his template and beautiful design. This form is designed for a 62"-64" bow, but I think it works for a 66"er as well.
I found it challenging to create such a curvaceous riser shape. It took a lot of tweaking, but now I have a wood and paper template for future builds. I want to thank Greg in Malad for his great advise and design of his
sanding jig , which will make future builds easier as well.
I put a curve of black phenolic and a strip of hickory in the riser for detail. I hope it's not too busy.
Compared to a recurve, I felt like it was more complicated to get this bow into the press. More lam layers, more epoxy, more things trying to slide around, more curves to press down into. It came out pretty well though.
Topic: My first R/D longbow build (KennyM style) (Read 1628 times)
