New bue from a 7000 year old design

[Pat B]

The initial straightening went well plus I added a little bit of back set.
More to come...

[Mad Max]

Elg is Norwegian for moose. The sinew Bue sent me was Norwegian moose.
 I think elk is a European name for moose. Our "elk" are wapiti but early settlers mistakenly called them elk.

Wapiti, Did not know that
We don't have Antelope in the USA, they are Pronghorn.
Antelope are in Africa 

[KenH]

What we in the States call Moose, the rest of the world call Elk.  Our Elk are properly called Wapiti and are closely related to the Red Deer or Red Stag of Europe, Asia and Africa.

[Buggs]

I prefer the metric system.

[Pat B]

I got her on the long string today. You can see she needs work. The limb on the left is stronger so I need to get that down closer to the right limb.
 The black on the levers was to help me visualize the working limbs without the distraction of the stiffer levers.

[Mad Max]

Coming along

[Pat B]

I got a little more done today. Got the limbs a bit more even...


...by using Eric Krewson's "Tillering Gizmo"...




 For those not familiar with this very cool and effective tool it works by leaving pencil marks where the limbs are not bending enough...


...and you can see where the pencil lines are not even everywhere. This gizmo also shows you if there is a twist in the limb or the scraping is not done evenly...



...more to come...

[Shredd]

  Interesting  idea with the black on the levers...  Let us know how that works out for you... 

  Speaking of distractions I am a big fan of uncluttered and one solid color backrounds...  It does not seem like much but those lines on the cinder blocks could throw you off...  I like painting a piece of plywood flat white and hang it on the wall behind the bow...

   Looks like she is coming along nice...

[Pat B]

Blacking out the levers sure did make it easier to see only how the working limbs were bending. I wasn't sure it would work but I'll say it works great.
 I've been using that wall for many years(30) but lately I have been thinking about putting a background with vertical and horizontal lines on it at 2" increments. Now I just need to do it. 

[Mad Max]

 

[Pat B]

She's sitting at 41#@26" now and the tiller looks pretty good. Today I heat treated the belly on one limb and added a little reflex too...




...more to come...

[kennym]

My hat is off to you guys who make selfbows!!

[Mad Max]

My hat is off to you guys who make selfbows!!

Some people put sinew on the back and Horn on the belly.
I have enough trouble just tillering 

[Pat B]

I have horn but I'm not ready to tackle that as of yet.

[onetone]

Nice to see your progress Pat. It’s looking good to my eye. Never having built a self bow, I have much respect for those that do. 

[Pat B]

I heat treated the other limb this morning and brought this limb into alignment. It was offset a bit just at and beyond the fade. I'll let her rest a day before releasing the clamps. We've had so much rain lately I'm not worried about rehydration.
...more to come...

[Pat B]

I got the other limb heat treated and did a little lateral straightening to boot...


Then reflexed and heat treated the outer working portion of the limb after the inner limb cooled. I also brought the working limb and lever in line across and through the limb...

[Mad Max]

Awesome

[Pat B]

I got most of the heat bending and straightening done. Will probably be a bit more tweaking to do but not now. I have to say, elm sure reacts well to heat corrections. In a few days I'll recheck the tiller, make adjustments then it will be a while before I start adding the sinew. Here is the end results of the last few days work...

[Buggs]

This is very cool! Nice to see someone making real bows.

If this is the same Pat B I have seen all over some other sites, then this is a master class