Apartment Bowyering - A 3pc build Along - With Full Draw

[LittleBen]

I've built a few takedown bows and would like to share a little bit of my process with all of you (and any lurking here we don't yet know).

I was inspired to make my first bow after reading Sam Harper's site since I also lived in an apartment. I had a shop for all of about 6mo before moving into the city and another apartment.

I think we've all seen that board bows are well within reach of apartment dwellers and poor people (to paraphrase Sam) but I'm not content building just board bows, and I don't have the money for a house or the space for lots of tools. I'm going to try to show any of you out there who feel limited by your lack of shop space what you can do with a little elbow grease.

So ... We're going to be building a 3pc takedown longbow with a R/D design. I will be shooting for 45-50# @ 25" draw length, but I assure you these bows are not limited to that draw, only my arms are. More on this later.

Did I mention there will be no fiberglass here, but we'll talk a little about stack thickness anyway!

Tools I will be using:
Belt sander - 4x36
Electric and manual hand planer
Home made lamination grinder
Power drill
Half Round/Flat rasp
Half round file
1/4" rat tail file
5/32" chainsaw file
Hand saw
Pencil

Tools you NEED:
Drill
Planer
Hand saw
Rasp
File
Sanding block
You may actually NEED a belt sander or a table saw to cut/surface the limb pad.

Materials:
Backing strip; hickory or bamboo or other
Core lamination
Belly lamination
Riser block 2" x 2" x 14" or so.
tip overlay material and optionally accent materials.
Limb Form
Bingham's takedown hardware kit
Glue of your choice, for this project lets say Urac/Unibond or TBIII so we don't need an oven, if you have/wanna build an oven, then also smooth-on.
Superglue

OK! Lets get started!

[Draffish]

thanks ben i live in a rented house with a living room / kitchen and not much space so looking forward  to seeing how this progresses so thankyou

[LittleBen]

I built a 68" longbow of very similar design for the bow swap 2013, and very much liked it, but want one thats shorter.

I've decided on 64", with a 14" riser. The limb will overlap the limb pad by 3.5" and will use a wedge of 6". This will give a working length of ~22.5" for each limb This doesn't sound like alot, but it's the same as a 60" bow with an 8" handle and 3" fades ... it's really not all that crazy, trust me.

So here are the specs we're shooting for:

64" ntn
45-50# @ 25"

I've chosen:

Hickory backing
Maple core
Wenge belly
curly Maple wedges

and a wenge and curly maple riser

BUT WAIT! We want to try to make as little dust tillering as possible, so lets test out the stack and taper first. We're going to use supertiller ...
I won't bore you with how to use it, and frankly, it only functions properly about half the time on 35% of computers ... but this is the result of modeling a wenge limb with a stack thickness of .440" and a total limb taper of .006" and a width of 1.6" at the end of the wedge. The width taper is basically pyramidal, slightly widened to 2/3 out on the limb then tapering to 3/8" nocks

   

The model indicates this bow would have a draw weight of 49# @ 25". My experience is that supertiller tends to overestimates draw weight so we're going to go with a total stack of .450", and since the wedge is 6" long, we're going to add .036" to get the butt thickness of .486" .. rounded to .490". That will give us some wiggle room.

Supertiller also show a chart of limb stress along the limb, I can't figure out how to get it to work right, but just trust when i say that this was the most even limb stress I could get was at .006" taper.

[LittleBen]

Now that we've chosen a limb profile, and a general design for the bow, and we're happy, we're going to need to make a form to glue up the limbs and give them that perfect shape!

Here is mine, I already had it so I'm not going to show pics of building it but basically it's 3 layers of 3/4" pine laminated together, the profile is drawn onto the side, and then you just start cutting, sanding, planing, whatever you gotta do to get the shape. I used a hand saw to get close to the line, and then a belt sander to true it up. The holes are 1 1/4" or 1 1/2", wide enough for 2" spring clamps.

 

Since it's a bear to make a form and I don;t have space for more than 1 or 2 of them, I make them longer than the limbs I intend to build, the right 3/4 or the form is a constant radius curve and for the left 1/4 of the form, the radius gets smaller, giving more and more of a curve as you get to the edge ... this was I can get some different profiles based on where I position the lams along the form during glue up.

[LittleBen]

Now onto preparing the laminations.

we've decided on a stack of .490"

I've decided on:

Hickory backing, .150" parallel
Maple core, .120" taper
wenge belly, .210" taper

I could taper them all, and theres  no reason not to but my sled tapers at .0025" so if I taper them all I'll have too much taper.

I will taper 2 lams to give .005" taper, and I'll add the last .001" or so of taper during tillering ... it's an imperfect system for an imperfect world. If you can taper at .002", then taper them all. If you don;t have a lamination grinder either send your material to someone who does, or buy it pre-tapered! I didn't say I was going to teach you magic here!

Then we need a wedge. I believe I settled on .250" thick wedge, 6" long. This I will taper by hand on the belt sander ... carefully. A word to the wise on the wedge ... this is one place where you have to depart from what our glass loving brothers might do. Since our lams are so much thicker than what they use, you cant have any unnecessary contour to the wedge ... It needs to be a simple ramp shape. You're not going to be able to make a parallel section over the limb pad and taper the rest ... the lams will never make that bend.

Here's what the lams and wedge look like ready for glue up:

 

[LittleBen]

Now we glue it up, you're going to need lots of spring clamps, and also some c clamps for extra pressure at the end of the wedge.

FOR GOD'S SAKE DO A DRY RUN FIRST AND CHECK to make sure your gaps are all good. You'll get a feel for where you need more or less clamp pressure. A pressure strip of hickory, maple or oak of .125" along the whole length, or just a critical section can go a long way to getting a better glue line.

 

I'm using TBIII, so I leave the limb on the form for 5days to dry if it's very low humidity, longer if not. Better to wait than screw it up. I find that TBIII adds alot of moisture to the wood, so we're going to wait 2 weeks to tiller once the second limb comes off the form anyway ... might as well relax ... nothing about this is going to be fast.

Then do it all over again:

 

Now wait 2 weeks for the wood to lose moisture. No I'm not kidding.

In the mean time glue up your riser block if you're not using a solid block:

 

I should have mentioned you'll need between 20 and 200 beers for this project depending on your habits and your choice of adhesive

[monterey]

Most of my 150 to 200 beer bows come out a bit funny looking.  Could probably handle the twenty though.    

I'm enjoying this build along.  Not so much for the apt aspect as just to get a good look at how you wood lam guys do this.

Is this a done project or should we kick back and wait two weeks for an update while those limbs dry.?

BTW, I have never considered the idea that the water based glues like TBIII could have that effect on the MC!

[LittleBen]

It's a finished project ... but don't tell anyone.

Yeah the water based glues really do ... I realized this from two things ... first the limbs are like wet noodles if you take them off the form after only 24hrs, and also titebond dries faster on wood than on my linoleum floor ... that's because the wood is absorbing the water and the linoleum isn't.

My final hint was that bows which I finish more quickly, often settle in in weight over weeks-months, and more than once the core has actually shrunk more than the back or belly so that the limb edges aren't perfectly even anymore.

[takefive]

Two weeks?  Aw man, I was hoping to be shooting it tomorrow        Glad you are posting this and I'll be following along with great interest, Ben.  I own a small home, but I'm limited to a small area in my basement.  Nice to see a build along that can be done without a fully set up shop.    

[LittleBen]

Ok, lets keep moving along here.

We've got our limbs laminated and our riser block glued up. I determined that 10degree limb pad angle will yield about 1 - 1.5" of reflex, just about what I want since I want to end with just about zero reflex.

Mark your riser for the limb pad
 

Get out your was and start cutting
 

It's gonna be pretty rough after the hand saw so clean it up on the belt sander, or if you use a table saw it's probably clean enough already
 

[LittleBen]

Now we need to get those limbs and the riser drilled. We wanna do this before cutting out the limb profile in case we have less than perfect alignment.

I use a drilling jig I made. It's basically like the Bingham jig, except it's oak, it sucks, and it was $6 not $60. A drilling jig is not required but helps.
 


Mark the limbs for the limb hole position, mount the jig and drill the 1/4" holes for the alignment pin holes only.Same for the riser.
 

Then install the alignment pins in the riser, mount the jig to the back side of the limb, align the limb with the riser, Clamp the limb with jig onto the riser in the aligned position and drill right through the limb into the riser with a 5/16" bit. This ensures the limb is aligned and doesn't rely on the jig being perfect.
 


Then enlarge the hole in the riser only to 27/64" or whatever is required for your hardware, and tap for the threaded limb bolt inserts.
 
 


If you don't have or want to make a drilling jig, you can just mark the hole locations and drill by hand (not recomended) or with a drill press. This is not likely to result in very good alignment.

OR you can just clamp each limb to the riser and drill both the alignment pin hole and the limb bolt hole straight through the limb and into the riser. The only downside is you'll need to fill part of the alignment pin hole on the backing side of the limb with a wood dowel or something. You can always cover this imperfection with a piece of glass, wood, or phenolic if you like.

[LittleBen]

Here's the result:
 

Pretty decent alignment, not perfect but within 1/8" or so.
 

[LittleBen]

Well it turns out I forgot to take picture of the limb profile marked on the back of the bow so I'll describe my process.

To begin, I draw a first perpendicular line across the limb 4" from the butt end. Then draw a second perpendicular line across the back 2/3 of the way to the tip, in this case it was just about 9" form the tip.

Second mark the tip width, you'll need marks for 3/4" wide, and 3/8" wide.

Now to draw the profile, mark a line extending along the limb from the side of the limb at the first line to the 3/4" wide mark at the tip. Do the same for the other side. This is your first taper line.

Next draw a line from the 3/8" wide tip mark, to the intersection of the first taper line and the second perpendicular line.

Like this ... Now cut out the profile, you've got a modified pyramid bow, little wider at mid limb to get some extra stability from limb twisting without adding too much limb mass.
 

Next we bevel the limb tip and add a chunk of buffalo horn.

Here's the profile of the limb and the limb tip overlay glued on.
 
 

Lastly we're gonna add some spice to the limb butts. I don't have a picture, but I did this by bolting the limb to a block of wood that holds the limb at a 45 degree angle and then round it by hand against a belt sander. You can do this with a file as well, It will just take a long time.
 

[LittleBen]

Here comes the part I love! All that work grinding lams and gluing pays off right now.

I did a quick floor tiller, I could see it was slightly stiff midlimb-tips, so I sanded very slightly then braced it. Here's the first brace:
     

Had slight limb twist which I corrected, did a little sanding on the right (upper limb) and this is where we ended up.
     

I then finished tillering which basically just involved pulling it one inch at a time and confirming that everything was kosher. After I got the bow to an even brace height and eliminated the limb twist, there was no more tillering needed. Just slowly exercising and working the limbs to full draw. tillered out to 26" for an inch of safety.

Ended up with 1/16" positive tiller, and just a hair of reflex. We'll see how it holds with shooting in. So far wenge seems to be a pretty decent belly wood. Granted it's probably 5x as expensive as ipe and not nearly as good, but it sure looks nice too.

[T Callahan]

Very nice build along ben! It's great to see this done with "poor folk" tools.lol

[LittleBen]

OK well lets keep moving along. We've got the bow basically tillered. Time to finish sand the limbs and add a little spice to the riser.

 

I don't have pictures of the process, and really this should be done before drilling the riser, but  I made a mistake/last minute decision, so I added a 1/16" phenolic strip the full length of the riser for some protection from riser breakage, then added 1/16" curly maple, 1/16" phenolic, and a second 1/16" curly maple lam onto the back side of the riser. I forget the exact length, but I didn't sweat the exact measurement here.

I also shaped the belly side of the riser block on the belt sander and added 1/16" curly maple lams onto a couple of the belly side curves.

 

[LittleBen]

Also went ahead and stained the backing, rounded the corners, finish sanded the limbs, narrowed the tips to their final width, and shaped them up.
 

I really wanted the stain much darker, but the sanded hickory back doesn;t take stain too well.

 

[LittleBen]

Unfortunately I don't have before and after finishing photos, but anyway, after the previous step I got out my rasp, my file, and my hand saw and got working. Normally I use my belt sander for some things, and sometimes a drill mounted sanding drum, but in the spirit of this project being doable with minimal tools, I did all the riser finish work by hand, and have the blisters to prove it.

Once I got it all shaped out with the rasp and file, I sanded with 80, 150, then 220 grit, wiped off all the dust with denatured alcohol and finished the bow with 4-5 coats of wipe-on-poly, my go to finish. I did NOT try to fill the grain, I decided to leave the wenge more natural.

Here she is, all dressed up.

 

This shows the true color better
 

 

 

 

 

[LittleBen]

This shows the riser beveling the best
   

The finished bow strung and ready for some more shooting.
   

Full draw pic soon to come!

Bow turned out 45# @ 25", will probably settle in to about 43# or so with more shooting in (only some secret in the apartment arrows through it so far)

So it came in a little light, but still an acceptable hunting weight. I ended up with about 1.55" wide, slightly more narrow than the original model, and a stack thickness of .450" right after the wedge ... which was slightly thicker than the model predicted (at .440"). This is to be expected because like I said the model in supertiller tends to overestimate draw weight. I think this is because it only models a single wood and wenge and other typical compression woods are stiffer than most backing woods, and core woods. Or it could be I added slightly less reflex than predicted and the model also doesn't account for set in a wood bow.  

All in all I'm pretty happy with this project, my only issue is with the color of the maple i-beam vs the maple accent lams. They were not from the same board and are obviously 2 types of maple because they don't really match. Live and learn ... next time all the wood of each species will come from a single board!

[Sam Harper]

Excellent build along!  And very cool looking bow.