Maple flatbow in an afternoon
Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:19 pm
Good evening folks.
Early in 2022 I'll be teaching a trunctated bowmaking course - in just an evening and a day the students will make a flatbow. This in contrast to the usual two full days and an evening to make a bamboo-backed longbow.
So to prepare I made one myself in the same style.
The timber is Hard Rock Maple, with a thin shim of Ironbark on the belly which allows me to be a bit more conservative with my very limited stock of Maple. I made it according to a morning of calculations and design that would give the students the best chance at coming away with something robust, yet easy to make and reliable.
I made a template for this handle on th 3D printer. This is the first time I've ever made a bow with a built-in shelf. I designed the grip to be skew-wiff, which when combined with the shelf cutout makes for a wooden bow that's nearly centre-shot. Which means it should be more forgiving of finding arrows of the right spine...so I'm told.
The bow layout is a simple pyramid design. 43 mm wide at the fades and 12 at the tips. 70 inches ntn with a 10 inch rigid center. One of the students has orangutan arms and one is from tall stock and hasn't yet finished growing. So the bows need to be long to accommodate.
Layout and cutout took about 10 minutes. Tillering took perhaps another 45 minutes to an hour. The tiller isn't perfect, but it's good enough for the purposes.
This is the first pic I took. First brace. I didn't do any long string tillering - I just braced it. Not too shabby for being straight off the bandsaw. A short while later this is how it looked. A bit stiff in the right limb. Ah. Yes now. That's a bit better. Here it is pulling 41 lb at 28 inches. About an inch and a half of set. I've not yet shot it, never mind put it through the chrony. I don't expect it to be a rocket launcher, but it should shoot reliably and straight for several years at least. I suppose it would be nice for the outer 1/4 of the limbs to bend a touch more. Maybe I will just narrow them a bit.
Here are some unglamorous shots of the handle, before scraping/sanding/waxing: As you can see there's still some work to be done to make it proper purdy.
More pics to follow when I get it properly finished.
Ciao,
Yeoman
Early in 2022 I'll be teaching a trunctated bowmaking course - in just an evening and a day the students will make a flatbow. This in contrast to the usual two full days and an evening to make a bamboo-backed longbow.
So to prepare I made one myself in the same style.
The timber is Hard Rock Maple, with a thin shim of Ironbark on the belly which allows me to be a bit more conservative with my very limited stock of Maple. I made it according to a morning of calculations and design that would give the students the best chance at coming away with something robust, yet easy to make and reliable.
I made a template for this handle on th 3D printer. This is the first time I've ever made a bow with a built-in shelf. I designed the grip to be skew-wiff, which when combined with the shelf cutout makes for a wooden bow that's nearly centre-shot. Which means it should be more forgiving of finding arrows of the right spine...so I'm told.
The bow layout is a simple pyramid design. 43 mm wide at the fades and 12 at the tips. 70 inches ntn with a 10 inch rigid center. One of the students has orangutan arms and one is from tall stock and hasn't yet finished growing. So the bows need to be long to accommodate.
Layout and cutout took about 10 minutes. Tillering took perhaps another 45 minutes to an hour. The tiller isn't perfect, but it's good enough for the purposes.
This is the first pic I took. First brace. I didn't do any long string tillering - I just braced it. Not too shabby for being straight off the bandsaw. A short while later this is how it looked. A bit stiff in the right limb. Ah. Yes now. That's a bit better. Here it is pulling 41 lb at 28 inches. About an inch and a half of set. I've not yet shot it, never mind put it through the chrony. I don't expect it to be a rocket launcher, but it should shoot reliably and straight for several years at least. I suppose it would be nice for the outer 1/4 of the limbs to bend a touch more. Maybe I will just narrow them a bit.
Here are some unglamorous shots of the handle, before scraping/sanding/waxing: As you can see there's still some work to be done to make it proper purdy.
More pics to follow when I get it properly finished.
Ciao,
Yeoman