A Indians trip to the Asians steps

[scars]

After Thanksgiving 2012 I got a call from my wives brother, And he says " Joe, my son is gonna be 12 years old soon, can you make him a bow?" I says "Heck Ya" I get out the saw walk across the road and cut down a six inch thick tanoak an immediately procede to ruin it. And it sits outside of my shop until a guy I know who happens to be a primitive arts master sees it, and He says " Hump,,, ummmm you need to get the bowyers bibles 1 and 2"  And I said "The what bibles" He starts laughing, I say, Just send me the link. That started me down the rabbit hole. I meet the rabbit and he says " The blue pill or the red pill? " I say both.

Okay, intro done.

Now I am a native American with a T E N and I have at 52 just started making bows. The first bow I found on the web Happen to be a molly. then a meare heath bow. Then the Hun bow. My thoughts were someday I would make them. I made a molly with a hickory board I got from seven lakes a meare heath bow from some black locust I got from Troy. Now it is time for a Hun bow or a Mongol bow. I broke down and bought Adam Karpowiczs book on ottoman Turkish bows. A very good read. I highly recommend it if you choose to eat the red or blue pills. At the moment I don't have any fresh maple staves or mulberry, but I do have osage which is a member of the mulberry family.

For the last month, month and a half I have been trying out different types of materials bamboo flooring vertical and horizontal both I felt were to dry or the glues were to brittle and or unknown there was always some voids to try to work around. I do have some bamboo slats but as I gained some knowledge about bamboo used in Asian bows I found out that most bamboo is shaped while it is green. I did not want to chance ruining my slats so I  did not try them.  The woods I experimented with are white oak, white ash and white hickory they were all kiln dried and I did not soak or boil the limbs, only used dry heat. All failed either in the bending process or the pre tilleriing. I bought 4 staves on **** I was not worried about ring thickness the only requirements were minimal knots, twist and straightness and price. The four stave were hackberry hickory elm and osage. The hackberry after rough shaping started to bend in all the wrong places.  The hickory twisted  both may be used in other projects but I decided that they would not be acceptable for my needs. Then I started on the osage, It was only 51"s but it was 3 1/4 wide and 2 3/4 thick, I ripped it with the annual rings. Chased a ring on both pieces and realized that they just might work. The smaller one has ended up on the sinew thread. By the time I had started on the sinew thread I had not received Adams book yet. He recommends that you use the bark side of the stave as the belly so in a way you are making a backwards bow. This is getting way to long so tomorrow I will post a picture the core of my bow project.

Joe

[scars]

This where I am at:
Riser is glued on to the core, and so are the tips. I am not sure if the kasan bends are bent correctly. I have been looking at many pictures of cores and how they are bent. Mine may be a little sharp, but my mind says live and learn.
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The core is glued with hide glue at 7 parts water and 3 parts dried hide glue soaked for 24 hours prior to heating.

[scars]

Next is the horn.


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I'll start sanding and shape the core groove the belly, do the same to the horn so they both match up. Do a couple dry runs then glue it up.

[Roy from Pa]

Wish ya luck Dude. I'll be watching this build..

[MoeM]

To my eyes the kasans (mid limb bend?!) look a bit hingy bend but I dont really know a lot bout composits...
I guess your German isn`t very well but maybe some pics in this amateurs    buildalong  might show you some usefull.
The board above also handles composit bows so maybe it`s worth to check some topics too.
Have you checked out atarn.org? Founded to research the whole ancient asian archery- usefull for sure!

[scars]

Roy, Luck will be with me if I make three or four cores and get one past the tillering tree.

Moe, Thanks  thats a nice site but I'll need a translater filter.  I am a member at atarn.net it is the .org forum. They have a making bows and arrows sort of like the bowyers bench here. Atarn likes to keep to the very traditional methods and since I am  sort of taking what I like from all the areas of asia I choose to start this build here instead of there. You are right about the midlimb bend. It scares me The core is 8mm thick instead if the 5mm that is recommended. Once I get the horn in place I will tiller to even out the limbs prior to sinewing.
 However I am not as confident as I would like to be. I did get the radius of the bends from Adams Book, but then his book shows about five or six different forms for the same bends. Only time will tell the whole story.

[LongStick64]

Use Google Chrome as your net browser and you can translate any page

[scars]

LongStick64,

That worked perfectly. Thanks

Joe

[halfseminole]

I'm keeping an eye on this for when I upgrade my horse bow.  Either I'll use your plans or I'll have to have you make me one, it seems...  You've really got my interest.  I hope this works out well for you.

[scars]

You know I might be over thinking this but the more I look at the core the more I think that the handle is going pop off. So I think I will cut the handle and make a fishtail splice riser. I can picture it staying on until I put the tepeliks on then the handle releases with about a quarter inch of sinew glued over it. Well I'll think about it to night and take another look tomorrow.

[scars]

I guess I over thought it. I cut the handle out and started to fit the fishtail splice and cracked the core limb. Should of had my glasses on. On to core two:

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side view
right tip, Change, will be lam tip.

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left tip

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Handle

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halfseminole  Its all an adventure.

[scars]

On a side note: Once it cracked I tested the mid limb on both limbs by placing my knee on the bends and pulling till they broke at about 25 degrees past straight, both broke cleanly. My thoughts on that, Once horn and sinew are applied they would not break or crack. Most of the bend will be contained in the sal area and only a small part of the midlimb bend will bend. If my reckoning is at all close to what I see in my mind then the sal will bend a lot the midlimb bend will straighten out to about 100-110 degrees and the kasan should barely move if at all

[scars]

I ordered some more horn, while thinning one of the horns I noticed a small crack one the wide end of my horn. It was only 1 1/2 inches from the end so I cut both horns to the same size and carried on only to find another one about two inches above the last place. I am not sure but I think I should be above the kasan eye with my horn.

I think I will use some of the broken horn to reinforce the siyahs sides and may try it on the grip also.

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Maple lam tip glued and sanded.

Okay I am going to rabbit trail for a little bit.

While researching and making the cores for this horn bow my mind kind of wanders around and I have been thinking that if you were to bulk up the core straighten it then see it as a self bow that it would be similar to the molly and the holmy. Now at 8000 years old I can sort of see a bow progression as knowledge is gained through the generations of bowyers skills. Not saying I am assuming. But it makes me think, What did the bows look like 16000 years ago? Well enough rabbit trailing.

[JEFF B]

this is real interesting as i love horse bows of any kind thank you for sharing  

[KellyG]

Sweet

[scars]

Jeff
Thanks, if you have any tips or words of advice feel free to send them. I just bought one of attilas U-finish horse bows. Made me want to make a glass horsebow. I have not owned a glass bow since the early 80s. Reminded me of the early grizzlies.

[JEFF B]

hey scars the one i have is a samick #50 @28'' draw and it spits an arrow real fast it loves river cane . i had a go at making a bow but it went Bang so i did another same thing. did this about 4 times and said enough is enough. so i got me this little horse bow and thats it. i have seen the attilas U-finish horse bows and i like em and yup its got me thinking on getting one. all i can say is have fun and take it nice and slow and dont do what i did and rush it.

[scars]

New horn just arrived today I set up the band saw up with a single point and ripped the horn to 3/16". I heated the horn and it is pressed between two pieces of flat stock. Will see how it looks tomorrow, so far no fractures.

[scars]

Well It took me two weeks to get the horn glued to the core. In all my research the horn to core ratio was close to 1:1. My core measured in at about 5/16 of an inch thick, so I made the horn 5/16" as well. However to get the horn close to that size I had to place it in a pan I made out of some roofing flashing. Get it to a rolling boil till it soften enough to flatten , and get it as straight as possible. That was not to hard to do just took a little time. Making a tool to groove the horn and the core, well that took some trial and error. But I did finally get both grooved and they did fit as long as there was no hide glue involved. But the glue would start to gel before I could get both pieces together.
After that set back I got to thinking I could reheat the horn and shape it to the shape of the core. I made a plywood form slightly smaller than the form I made for the core limbs. Heated the horn once more and clamped them to the form. Only it flatten the grooves I had made on the horn. I  made another change of plans and sanded out the grooves on the horn and the core.
 I have to admit I rushed the gluing I sized the horn and the core only two times before the glue up of the horn and core. Then I only let the glue dry for two days. before taking the clamps off. It looked good until I woke up the next morning. The horn at the kasan eye to the to the sayahs had started to pull away and separate. I did a homer simpson and said Doh!! Believe me, Take your time do not rush any procedure.  I had to get out the heat gun and try to fix what I had done. I did get it to stick together but I just did not have faith in my work. So I unglued the horn from the core and sanded both with 32 grit paper. Sizing was done six times until I could see a nice gloss to the wood and horn. I then put enough heat to the core and horn to keep both from jelling too fast while I glued them together.
I just finished doing a little sanding on horn and the osage. I think it is a little to heavy weight wise. I am only getting a couple of inches of flex bending it over my knee, feels like 40 /45 pounds. Need to do some scraping this weekend. I'll get some pictures up by Friday night after I get home from work.

[scars]

Okay It has been pretillered, or as close as I am willing to go without a backing.
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All that is left to do is place sinew in all the areas that need more reinforcement. Like where the v-splice connects to the sal or limb. The kasan and wrap where the horn ends at the handle and tips.
 I reduced the Sals and horn with a scraper and they are bending nice and even.