Ozbow

Colin. Just whip over the splinters and keep shooting it. People were doing that for centuries and it worked fine. It still works. By the way, those bows were long gone by the dark ages in Europe. They were from the early European Neolithic and seemed to endure for about 4000 years until around 800...

Good on you, cmoore. I am glad to see somebody having a go at these bows. Have you got copies of Jim Hamm and Paul Alely's encyclopaediae of American native bows and arrows? I have made a few similar bows from Osage, but closer to 50" n-n. They can certainly be thumpers, but require a bit of t...

Interesting experiment. I have had glassed bows made with the stuff as core material. On those Hill styled bows, they were delightfully light in the hand and reasonably quick because of the relatively low limb mass. When new, my bows (I had two) had a very pale creamy colour but which went to a col...

I think I have just about got a copy of almost every model of straight-ended bow put out by the major wood bow manufacturers during their heyday. The only other examples are perhaps those which were custom jobs from Pearson, early Bear, York, American Archery Co., The Outdoor Sports Mfg. Co., L. E....

Colin, I would have put a full length lamination along the belly side of the bow up and over the handle if it is still flat enough and could be bent by that much. A 3mm lam would have done the job and pushed the bow weight up somewhere into your easy draw range. It would also have provided more than...

As promised earlier, here are some pictures of a Ben Pearson Deerslayer hickory static recurve which has been built using the kerfing system to make the recurve. These bows were still being made by Pearson in 1958 (pp7 of the Ben Pearson 1958 catalogue) by which time, most of his line of bows was gl...

Colin, I bought a 2-specie 72" stave from Rudderbows years ago comprised of 5/8" thickness of Hickory and 3/4" of Ipé. I am thinking of making a draw-weight suitable for me ELB with 3/8" thickness of HIckory and the belly side having all the taper in the Ipé to take the compressi...

Colin, 2.5" of set is not a bad amount for a bow of just shy of 7 feet long. As a percentage of the bow's length, it is only a poofteenth over 1%, but shifting only 6.95 grains per 1 lb of draw weight to 200 is a bit disappointing I suppose. Any chance of trying some American Red Oak for a bell...

Colin,

Has she taken much set after the long draw??? What sort of cast is in her?

SIGH!!! I prefer the look of a modest whip-ended bow myself of course. To my eye, these look more circular in bend that the bendy handle bows, but that is mere nitpickery on my part. Love to know its cast at the long draw though. Interestingly, as an aside, I cannot recall a single use of the words...

Yes, very nice indeed, Mik.

Brett,

I now have your reply PM acknowledging the issue, thank you. I am glad we are able to come to an agreement on this. It is an important matter as you realise and and I look forward to your offered solution.

I sent it to you via Ozbow, so it should still be sitting there waiting for you. It didn't bounce, so it will be there but I will send it as a PM once again.

Welcome back Brett. You got my email OK then?

hunterguy1991 wrote:otherwise I'd have gone close to running out of belly wood at the tips

Collin,

So long as there is enough material for nocks or horns, functionally, this should not really matter. It is more of a cosmetic thing really.

Daryl and Colin,

I also concur with your thinking here. I have noticed much the same thing with my ELBs in the past.

Daryl, Yes, I am a with you on that one, however, some of us oldies doggedly hang onto our oldest archery traditions and try to pass them on to others whenever we can. Wood bows will probably never be significant in Australia because the alternatives are so much easier to work with in this age of th...

I think you would have to agree that this a simple solution to what could be a more difficult situation. As a bonus the curve does not pull out compared to heat recurving. Indeed it is. I should have remembered it earlier. Presently I am up at Jeff's place visiting, but when I get home, I will post...

After all that, I have just remembered that I have a couple of Ben Pearson Old Hickory static recurve bows which have had the recurves made in the same manner, but only with three laminations instead of Daryl's 5. There was only the one kerf cut into the limb end and a single piece glued in when the...

I appreciate your position on the bow, Mick, and I do understand. My system with an old bow is to brace it first and both feel and examine the back and belly surfaces for lifting of any fibres/splinters and then go over any jointing and glue lines looking for separations. If there are and they are a...

There are heaps of such bows on eBay for sale under the Longbows or Recurve bows classifications. They don't cost much on average. I have a friend in Michigan who regularly sends me bows and other stuff I buy on eBay and he can fit around 6 bows in one of his boxes if you like to buy one and have it...

You are a clever man, Daryl.

How did you come on that kerfing idea? I have never seen it discussed anywhere before; not even in my substantial library of old archer how-to books and magazines.

Waiting for the next exciting episode. I am interested in the effect of the bamboo as a backing on the much lower MoR rated American Ash on an ELWB and whether or not the back can be radiused successfully and by how much. With regard to tapering a core lam and the belly, the glass bowyers use a mast...

Daryl and Mick, Why would you not shot it and why do you think it would explode? Yours is a common view of the old bows, but I have quite a few old Bear static recurves (Kodiaks and Grizzlys) much older that this Alaskan and I shoot them without the slightest concern. I have given two away and I sti...

cmoore,

Recurving the tips does 3 things on short bows -

1. They reduce the amount of working limb because they are static;
2. They increase the draw weight;
3. They prevent the string leaving the bow on very short bows.

They do not upset tiller in any way.

cmoore, Here is my analysis of your tiller job. My suggestion would be to put more bend into the middle rather than the outer limbs in this case. file2.jpg My reason is that if you put more bend in the outer limbs in such a short bow, there is more risk of the string departing the bow. However, if y...

Correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds as though Perry reflexing is simply gluing in the reflex by tillering a stave to brace and then reverse bending it to glue the backing on rather than heating in the reflex before tillering?? That is about it, Colin. I understand what you are saying - 40lbs at...

Personally, I have no idea why they are scorned by those who do. This from a dedicated barebow instinctive shooter too. You won't hear any badmouthing from me. As Ascham stated at the beginning of Part 2 of Toxophilus - Philologus: What is the chief point in shooting that every man laboureth to come...

Colin, I am at Jeff Challacombe's for the next few weeks, so I don't have my TBB Vol. 4 to refer to, but as I have always understood his explanation, only two parts are required to do the job - the body of the bow and the backing lamination. I cannot remember Dan Perry referring to the use of multip...

Thank you Tommo. I gathered that much from my reading already. I won't spoil any arrows I have already. I will just pick six shafts from my stock with the same nominal spine and make up two sets of three as you describe.