Alright, let me start out by saying this will be my first buildalong so if I leave out any details please forgive me. This bow will be for a friend of mine that has been asking me to build him a shorter hickory bow to hunt with for next year. I dont build very many bows under 64" so this will be a little different for me. I have some hickory that I cut and split last April that I will use on this build.
This piece is 61" tip to tip so I should end up with around 59" ntn. It has some natural deflex and a little sideways bend at one end to it but I'll take that out with some heat later.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/0172e57e.jpg)
Oops, forgot to take pics of a couple of steps. I laid it out 1.5" wide out to midlimb and then tapered it down to 1/2" nocks and cut out the profile. I then drew out my taper lines on the sides and rasped the belly down until I got it to floortiller a couple of inches. After I got the tips moving a couple of inches I put it in the form to take the deflex out and add a couple inches of reflex and heated it up with the heat gun. I went ahead and toasted the belly to a dark brown color since it is still pretty thick and most of the brown wood should be scraped off by the time the bow is finished.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/011749b3.jpg)
Here it is after sitting in the form and cooling for 24 hours. The limb that was deflexed still sprang back up about 1/2" but I think it will be fine.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/30fc7d61.jpg) (http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/ed29929d.jpg)
Looking good, keep it coming. By the way, what is your buddy's draw length?
My friends draw length is 27". I know the bow is kinda short for that draw length but I think I can make it work. My experience has been that heat-treated hickory is completely different from untreated hickory as far as compression strength. If it looks like its going to take too much set I may have to change my game plan. I should get to work on it some more tomorrow.
Nice build along - looking forward to updates. Thanks for sharing.
You could try flipping the tips a little to help with the string angle. Looks real good so far I will enjoy watching this one.
Yeah I may end up reflexing the tips a little bit Razorback. Although I havent had much luck trying to induce sharp bends with hickory.
I actually heat-treated this stave about a week ago and its been inside my house in controlled humidity since then so I figure its been long enough to start bending it a little. The heating stiffened the limbs up quite a bit so I rasped the belly down to where the limbs felt like they were bending about the same and put a long string on it. Heres what it looked like.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/c47d1edf.jpg)
The left limb was stiffer so I took about 30 strokes off of it with the ferriers rasp and I also took about 20 strokes off the right limb since the bow is still really heavy and I want to get a short string on it as soon as possible. I checked it on the tree again with the long string and got it bending good enough to get a short string on it. Heres what it looked like.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/1d34fcf0.jpg)
In the pic above its hitting 50# at 14" so now its just a matter of working the draw weight down and makin sure no hinges or flat spots develop. I took about 40 strokes off of each limb from fades out to 8" from the tips with my knife/scraper and checked it again.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/559cda5e.jpg)
Watch out for that area 1/4 out the right limb. Looks like a hinge. Don't stress that area until you get it worked out.
I think the spot you are talkin about is where there is a natural hump in the stave razorback. Worked on it some more and got it out to 50# at 22" and lookin pretty good. I dont use a tillering tree after 22" so the rest of the tillering I will do in hand and with a mirror. It started with 2" of reflex and is down to 1/2" now but I'm going to go ahead and tiller it on out a little farther before I decide whether to add more reflex or not.
Heres the last pic on the tree, 50#at 22".
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/23e6b4d8.jpg)
Looks good. Maybe needs a touch more than both limbs near the handle particularly the left limb. Jawge
Thanks George, I think I got it bending a little more in that area.
I tillered it on out to 28" and it ended up with 1.5" of stringfollow so I decided to reflex the outer limbs a little bit to get the tips back in front of the handle. Heres a pic of the form I used for that.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/af036e37.jpg)
I also cut out a shelf, shaped the handle a little bit and sanded some of the shellac off the back. The stave has a bunch of ridges and valleys on the back and I only sanded the high spots but I kinda liked the way it ended up looking.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/882037d5.jpg)
After I took it off the caul and let it sit for a couple of days I pulled it on the scale and it hit 50# at 26". I scraped some off of both limbs and got it back to 50# at 28" and heres what the full draw looked like.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/8f3cb240.jpg)
After about a hundred shots it took a little set in the inner limbs but still ended up with 3/4" of reflex. It kinda has a little r/d profile to it now. It shoots hard and straight. I'll get some finished pics up in a day or two.
Nice tiller okie. Cant wait to see her prettied up man.
I got it all sanded down and put 4 coats of tung oil on it so here it is. It ended up with 3/4" of reflex and 50# at 28" and 59" long ntn. It is a really nice shooting bow.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/002-31.jpg)
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/007-8.jpg)
The back of the bow ended up looking pretty cool
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/001-33.jpg)
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/003-29.jpg)
Antler tip overlays from a small buck I killed last year.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/004-23.jpg)
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/001-34.jpg)
Heres the hickory tree that this stave came from so if anybody wants to take a guess at what kind of hickory it is be my guest. I would like to know so I could write it on the belly of the bow. One guy told me it was mockernut but my grandpa always told me these were called black hickories.
(http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee503/Jamey_Burkhart/002-12.jpg)
Nice work! I like the natural design in the back too.
That bow is working. I love it, cool cambium on the back.
I guess it's ok, Okie:)
Pretty nice looking bow. Thanks for taking the time to share the process. I can never see too many of these build-a-longs.
There you go Okie "I guess it's ok, Okie:)" That's 5 Stars from Roy :)
Great looking back on that bow, Nice job!!!
Thanks for all the compliments guys, especially you Roy. I was wandering if I was gonna get your approval on this one. :)
That is a cool short bow!
I never would have guessed that it would have so little set.
Nice lookin' bow, okie! Great job.
Thanks Greg.
Thanks Stan.
Greg, I kept this stave in a closet with an rh meter and a space heater and kept the humidity at 35-40% when I wasnt working on it. I think that helped out a lot in keeping the set to a minimum.
Ya need my address okie? :) LOL
okie we have to meet sometime. Being so close we need to have a bow scraping day. Great reason to tell the wife I need some draw knife therapy. Great looking bow.
Thanks goose. We do need to get together sometime. It would be nice to have a bowbuilding buddy.
Nice bow, Okie. You did well. Jawge
Do you use a bandsaw to cut your staves to workable size? I'm trying to build a hickory bow, but don't have a bandsaw.
Thanks,
George
I dont have a bandsaw either George. I usually use a skilsaw to get it close to the profile and then i use a farriers rasp or beltsander to get to the final shape, depending on how snakey it is. This stave had really straight grain so I used a skilsaw and beltsander to get it down to its profile dimensions. With osage i usually just use a drawknife and hatchet to get most of the rough-out done but Ive tried that with hickory and it usually doesnt turn out too good. I get lots of tear-outs because of the interlocking grain.
I dont have a bandsaw either George. I usually use a skilsaw to get it close to the profile and then i use a farriers rasp or beltsander to get to the final shape, depending on how snakey it is. This stave had really straight grain so I used a skilsaw and beltsander to get it down to its profile dimensions. With osage i usually just use a drawknife and hatchet to get most of the rough-out done but Ive tried that with hickory and it usually doesnt turn out too good. I get lots of tear-outs because of the interlocking grain.
That tree has half a dog growing out of it!! Nice bow!