So glad I stumbled upon this forum! What a wealth of information and sharing here. I’ve been bitten by the horn bow building process. I’m a newby in many regards to traditional ottoman style horn bows. I’ve made a few some success here and there but still looking to hone my skills and experience in this particular niche. Seems like I’ve landed in a great place here. There is limited info online and most of that is conflicting.
My goal with these two bows is to test out some theories that for me are part of my learning curve. I suspect many of you here will already have the answer
To my queries and expected outcomes but in any case I will continue. I welcome any and all criticisms constructive or otherwise. I believe it’s the only way to get better and learn having a humble mindset with something so complex. I love the complexity of these builds and how exclusive it is. Not that I’m bored with making selfbows or other composite bows but they may be taking a back seat for now while I work on these.
Hopefully these pics upload ok. Please let me know what you think so far. My test here is to keep these below 60lbs. It’s my limit unfortunately to shoot comfortably with should injuries. I’m looking at stem cell therapy in next few years to address my issues of wear and tear literally! One of these bows will have its horn glued without grooving and just roughing the surface with 36 grit on both surfaces. Sizing will be the same and thouroughly done on both. The other will be non matching grooves. One the bows had more mid limb bend steamed in then the other which will be another test for early reflex out of the fades into the sal. Either way should learn something if both fail. I will take my time on these but not forever! I hope to have these belly contours done this week and horn ready as well if my other obligations will allow. Still some shaping to do obviously. I went with 50-52” for both as a safer margin being 6’6” with a wingspan of a teredactal. Hope to get safely 32” draw. Thanks for looking and any comments.
Welcome! You have a good start there. I see you used bamboo for limbs. I’ve never used bamboo, but it should work just fine. It might only be a bit more complicated surface to glue on, due to being thin and flexible. Normally the limbs are made so that the limbs are opposite way aligned - the bamboo surface power fibres are on the belly. I think its easier to bend core this way without breaking, but i don’t know if there is any other reason for that.
There are things that might seem discouraging about hornbows, but we are starting to have a lot of good knowledge available in books and in these discussion platforms. When you get to horn gluing, don’t hesitate to send pictures here about the gluing surfaces and your process. It’s about the most useful part to have experienced eyes to look at what you are about to glue together. Its annoying to have delaminating core. Steaming the limbs apart is sometimes impossible without ruining heat bent form on the wood core etc.
Only way to learn is trying. I wish i had done more relax/small scale try’s with off cuts of horn or wood, just to learn the grooving and sizing. But also sinewing. Finding good materials is another thing. Sometimes its impossible to know what you should be looking for if there is no help from others.
Learning wise, forums rule! Here we can document the process and if maintained carefully, it will be available for others to learn for a looooooong time.
Thankyou! Very good advise again thanks. I have a considerable amount of experience with bamboo in comparison to other woods so I opted for it on these. Ironically I have unlimited access to sugar maple on
My property which I know is best. I may do another build one day with maple. We tap our maples here for the sap right about now actually lol. Not sure I’ll do it this year though due to the time commitment. As far as the bamboo is concerned I e built several boo bows with sinew on the power fiber side/rind side with good results. I have been thoroughly impressed with bamboo and its capabilities and pound for pound is amazing stuff. Sizing and grooving is good practice for good adhesion of sinew. I may try another build with the rind side facing for horn glue side. It would be easier to bend too that direction with steam and heat even without steam possibly. I’ve done some bow builds with no horn on belly being rind side only and just toasted it well. I then sinewed the back side for a snappy bow. I will definitely post pics as I go here to get some much needed feedback. I will likley stick with a width of around 30mm. I may shorten up my siyahs more yet but still lots to do before getting there. Thanks again.
Hers my crude scraper holder for this build. I re did the radius on this card scraper to be about 6” instead of the 3.5” that was original to the scraper. It. Holds an edge well and cuts both directions.
Excellent video Dave.Good set up.I suppose with the lower contour one can measure the thickness easier also?
There is’nt much these boys hav’nt experienced here.
Have you ever seen the kheshig bow?It’s style was meant also for a longer draw.
A couple videos of the bow is shown on the PP composite site.
It’s an early mongolian style bow that is known for it’s pleasant longer draw experience.
Not sure if this is allowable but here’s the video of the bow.
I believe that the natural material version might be even better.Maybe kind of a precurser to the molly.It’s interesting to see the andaman and the asiatic cultures come to the same conclusion for efficiency making their bows.
Ok so I decided to do a set of matching groove scrapers. I used my repurposed card scrapers that I reshaped to a 6” radius. This took a while and I had to use needle files and a set of magnifying goggles for detailed work. It took a few tries to get right. I went with 12 tpi grooving. I’m hoping this will be sufficient grippage and surface area. The teeth are about 1.5mm deep and about 2mm apart. Let me know if you think these will work. My plan is to do one of these bows with these matching grooves and the other with non-matching grooves that are about 20tpi. My original plan and test intent was to done one bow with the grooving and the other with no grooving. I have since decided against this as I’m using bamboo as my core wood and know that good adhesion is more of a concern with bamboo. Don’t want to take any chances.
NIce work on your groovers…With bamboo if it is’nt too thin I think it should work fine.I’ve got 12 tpi and 15 tpi flat groovers.
A picture of my horn bow tool box.
That could be some early mongolian style bow, but in general i tend not to trust glass bow manufacturers at all. Looks like a functional shape anyway, but yeah. Might be just confusing.
Lots of work right there! Especially if you want perfectly matching!
They look really nice to my eye. Take care when you set the pieces together (wood and horn). Remember to make a dry run and mark some lines to get perfect matching and to know you didn’t “skip” a teeth.
I really like the kunz n.112 scraper since its so easy to sharpen. Makes scraping so much faster. Unfortunately they are not apparently sold anymore. There must be a substitute somewhere.
Interesting…. Has anyone tried these convex and concave scrapers that they offer??? The radius looks a little steep but could work for narrower bow perhaps.
I haven’t heard people using those that much. I guess the concave spokeshave could work.
I use quite little of concavity so i need just few passes with normal spokeshave. Then the final concavity is actually made by the toothed scraper to get perfect match. So i want to stop rounding of the maple core a little bit earlier.
Ok that makes sense then for the 6” radius I used for mine as it isn’t far off from the paint can diameter. The 112 grooved scraper that is ground to a 70mm radius seems to be half of the 140mm. Is this because you are angling the scraper as you scrape it on the horn and this way it matches up? Not sure I understand how that works out just yet.
I just tried to be accurate. Radius is half of a circle, right? So my circle that i used to draw the concavity/roundness to my scraper blade was 140mm.
Ok so enough messing around I need to get at these bows! The scrapers worked great on the cores. Nice straight grooves. I still have a tiny bit more depth to do but pretty well there. With the flesh side as the belly side for horn glue up I found that scraping was a breeze. In the past I’ve tried to groove the rind side before and it worked but much harder to do. Up next will be to groove the horn and build a jig to support the limbs when wrapping the glue up. Here are some pics.
