Hello everyone I'm Chris, this is my first post and first bow build. I've been lurking for sometime ever since I got the wild hair to build a bow. Let me start by saying thank you to all who have unknowingly contributed to supplying me with such an incredible repository of knowledge. In all honesty, I'm still pretty green to the whole trad thing so please excuse my lack of experience and ignorance to some terminology. All of this nonsense started in August when the new pastor at church let me shoot his bow at a great little range out here in CO. I was already shooting compound bows but man, that was a really fun yet challenging day. You mean you can take an elk with that little stick and string? After a resounding yes, I was hooked.
For my first bow, I decided to build a double lam all wood hickory and maple longbow for my wife. There's not much in the way of plans or instructions so I winged it based off some older threads and current tri-lam builds. My wife kinda has a thing for english longbows, so this thing had to be really long, 72". With future plans of building different styles of bows, it quickly became apparent that I was missing some much needed tools. Hooray, a great excuse to build or buy tools! For laminations, I built a thickness sander from a motor off e Bay, a ton of MDF and some home depot odds and ends. I also realized an edge sander would come in handy. Again, MDF and some salvaged parts and voila, a dust maker. The final addition was a craigslist bandsaw score.....ready go!
The first step was milling the hickory backing and hard maple belly. With no plans, the combined thickness was 2" tapering to 3/4." I later regretted how much wood had to come off between the bandsaw, sander and card scraping. I used a simple jig on my workbench to set the reflex and mild deflex using a technique learned here. The lams and handle were glued up using titebond III and were left to dry for over 48 hrs.
Excuse the mess...
After a quick cleanup, I was pleasantly surprised to have a nice blank to start tillering.
Man, the tillering process is a pain.
I eventually switched from the card scraper to the sander, thats when I really started seeing results. Long story short, I was aiming for 30# at 28" and ended up with 29#, not too shabby. I'm currently in the process of finishing the bow with linseed oil and will hopefully have a nice enough string to have my wife shoot it by this next weekend.
Her name is Jorunn by the way and she shoots better than me.
All critique and advice is very much welcomed.
Topic: 72" Hickory and Maple Longbow Build (Read 1957 times)
