Today I finally finished a project that started with a casual comment by a friend while on a mountainside back in October, hunting and enjoying the last of the fall colours. We were discussing our bucket lists, something it seems we old guys do more often as we age, and the topic became “what bow did you always want but never got around to getting”. My wish was always the Bear Super Kodiak, the 60’s models, the “Black Beauties”, before the take-downs. I shot my faithful old Ben Pearson Colt for 20 years, before I succumbed to the wheel bow craze for a decade or so. But I came back. My friend thought about it for a few moments and then asked “so why don’t you buy one, there’s often a listing for them.?” Too expensive, by the time you add in exchange on the dollar (none in Canada?), shipping, etc. So he said “so why not build one yourself”? Simple - I have never held one, or shot one, or even seen one up close and personal. Ever. But I always loved the look of them.
So that became 5 months of filing every picture I could find, calibrating the ratios of riser to limbs, width and length of sight window, grip, etc. I decided to use the limb shape from an old tracing of a Bear Tamerlane I had in the 70’s, no need to go static or anything drastic. After I had my drawings looking close I realized this thing has an incredibly long riser, and the cost of rosewood was going up exponentially. So I started with a 36” long piece of Rosewood, laid out the accent and fade angles, and made the cuts. I used Purpleheart between Sugar Maple for the accent stripe, and Bubinga for the “horns”.
That ended up at 33” between the fades, which wasn’t going to leave much for the limbs if I wanted to end up around 62”. So I cut the fades back and ended up with a 27” riser, which left me with 18” limbs, and it looked pretty close proportionately. I may have to build another one, because now I have 2 large wedges of Rosewood and the lower half of the Bubinga to make a new riser. I added on the 3 layers of black and white glass to the riser back, and then 2 layers to the belly, even though Bear didn’t. This thing is so long and slender I was starting to second guess my measurements, so a couple extra layers of reinforcement can’t hurt.
Then it was form building time (I think the plywood is about the same cost as the Rosewood), and then deciding on what to do with the limbs. I went with clear glass over Rosewood/Yew for the back, StabilKor, edge grain Paduak belly lamination, and black glass of the belly. My target draw weight was 45# @ 28”, and after checking all my records I went with .210 at 2” below the fades, both lams are .001 taper. Double checked everything, made a dry run in the form, and ………..it worked! I don’t have a long oven, since I do take-downs now almost exclusively, so I tented it, ran a 220V heater under it, and left it for the night. Almost crapped when I saw the air hose was quite limp. I don’t know how or when it happened, I had checked it the week prior to. Held my breath till I could grind off all the glue and check the laminations, but it all seems to be 100% tight, the glue lines are perfect from one end to the other. Dodged a major bullet, somehow. So here it is, I’m very happy with the result, haven’t a clue how accurate it is to the original, and don’t really care. The bow is 63” ntn, it draws smoothly beyond my 29” and the shot is fast!! The weight came in at 45# after tiller and 44# after final sanding and finish. Dead in the hand release, just a bit of string noise, but will tune it out over the next while. Trying for that “thud” that Kirk keeps talking about, rather than the twang in E minor. Built a new set of arrows for it and have yet to tune it all together. Done!
Topic: 2023 What did you do today.... (Read 68393 times)
