Hey guys, last year I built a few of my first bows. A silk backed board bow, broke a few other attempts, tillered crappy on some more, then finally made a decent hickory backed ipe longbow. It's tillered fairly well, but I missed the weight a bit and the hickory is getting chipped up from general mis-storage (my fault). In general, it was OK but I know my best work is still out there. I learned a little bit about bows then, but now I want to crank it up a bit and really produce something better. Before I would always take my time in the beginning, but then get wayyy to ancy to take my time once I got 50% through. I would try to power through a full tillering process in one night, and want to shoot it at 2am. Anyway...not this time.
So, I'm going to do a slow build-thread and hopefully y'all can chip in on all my questions. I'll do some research and try not to ask too many dumb ones.
1) I want to build a boo back ipe bow, since I have a good piece of ipe in the garage. Where can I get a quality piece of boo? 3rivers has one that has already been heated and flattened for $30, which seems like a decent deal to me.
2) My biggest problem is my size, 6'-2" with big-ole long ape arms. Draw length is about 31". So...does 70" work from knock to knock? I wouldn't mind 68", but I don't want to push the material and end up picking splinters outta my arms (again)...
Thanks!!!
Get Dean Torges' video on building bamboo backed bows. Follow it. You will build a good bow. 68" should be fine.
What John said. And nothing wrong with a 68 to 70 inch bow. My first few bows did not look all that great either:) Wish you luck.
Thanks guys, bamboo is on the way. I'm thinking of using this as a build go-along and doing reflex/deflex. Any thoughts? Also, if I use Urac instead of smooth on, do I still need to bake the bow?
http://poorfolkbows.com/ipe1.htm
Urac is great stuff, and you will not need to bake the bow. Glue it up one day and next day it's dry.