Building 2 similar 52” horn bows

Hers a quick video.

Those look good. Little concavity too. The grooves dont need to be even that clean and straight if you use the method of filling grooves with glue.

Thanks Jere. I did my first few thin sizing coats last night. Still got a number of them to do yet. I did a dry fit on both and grooves seem to fit nice and tight. Phew! It was a test for my ocd to get this good and straight and have these grooves line up. I think I’m gonna partially fill the grooves with glue upon glue up. As far as number of size coats I gather it will be around 10-12 coats or until shiny. My hope is that by doing it this way it will fill any imperfections unseen in the grooves. Here’s a few pics. Lots shavings!






I got my grooving all sized coated and ready last night. I then glued up the horn slats to the cores of both bows. I used the yumi rope and wedges method for both. I was considering doing one with tencik but the first o e went so well that I decided to do the other the same. It will be a good test either way of this method. I’ve seen one other instance where this method was used for horn bows that were not yumi bows. I was intrigued by the process so figured I’d try it. I got the grooves to line up good I think and got good squeeze out. I put lots of glue on there to ensure if any gaps were at least filled with glue. A dry run before went good and figment was nice and solid so here’s hoping I didn’t screw it up! lol. I’ll post a video link here but please feel free to fast forward thru boring parts. I could figure out how to fast forward thru bits of it to shorten it up. Oh well. You guys will get the idea. Let me know what you think!






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Very nice complete demonstration of this process.Thanks for showing it.
The overall process time was’nt all that long yet.

Ok so I got these off the forms and all looks great! What a relief! Everything looks lined up good and grooving aligned too. My biggest worry was the possibility of cross threading after all that effort to do matching grooves. Would have been a shame. I feel confident moving forward now and will start thinning the core and horn a bit more.








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That was a good video, thanks! This method seems to suit well for longer bows, yumi example of course. With rope and tencik it would be slow and maybe less manageable when multiple laminations are used?

I do quite a number of things differently than you here, so its definitely interesting to see other methods. Sometimes we find out we overcomplicate things so its always useful to learn something new. :slight_smile:

Thanks for your comments. Ya it’s a fair amount of experimenting going on here. I’ve read Adam’s book and know that these particular bows are breaking some of the rules or conventional wisdom. I have some theories on what may happen and the performance benefits that may be had if they survive. If at very least I’ve learned a lot on the build process and explored a new horn glue up method.

So I also made some time recently to get these two bows shaped up and sinewed. I spaced out the layers by 2 weeks dry time in between. In total so far there is about 80-85 grams on each bow. I may add a little more in a week or so depending on how things look. If you recall the bend for each of these bows was made different from the beginning. The one had more inner limb bend then the other. This one will be heavier in draw weight I suspect. The other one with the horn laminate syahs will be lighter around 50-60lbs I suspect. I suspect the other heavy bow will likley be much heavier. Time will tell but possibly 100lbs or more. I may have bitten off more than I can pull! lol. We will see and I may have to do some serious training to even pull the bow back with my shoulder injuries. My shoulder pain has been pretty good lately so maybe I can train up to it. I made these as an experiment to test out bending the bamboo limbs the opposite way that is typically done with the rind side on the back. My main concern with this method was getting good sinew adhesion to that side. I did manage to get the bows worked down to a good fine shape and grooved. A few size coats and then sinew applied. I used a 30% mix of sinew glue and sturgeon glue for laying sinew. 20% sinew and 10% sturgeon glue.

Couple more pics after about a week drying time.

Hey gang. It’s been a couple weeks since last layer of sinew was applied. I made some measurements to see if I’m in line or close enough to hit where I expect to some degree. Today I just added the third layer to both bows giving a total of 100grams to each bow. The core on the heavier bow (b) was left thicker with most other dimensions very similar. I will reassess in a couple more weeks and see how they look. I will add more reflex as the days progress by adding twists to string.

Both bows here will be 50” ntn with hopes of getting a draw length of 29-30”. Neither of them are build to be flight bows and are more or less based on war bow or target bows of Turkish/ottoman style.

Bow A. Dimensions. Projection approx 70-80lbs

-Mass 490grams (tips still long and includes glued on wood blocks for looping string for backset/reflex)

-grip

Wide:20mm

Thick:37mm

-Sal at mid limb

Wide:41.5mm

Thick:12mm

-Sal/kasan

Wide:38mm

Thick:11mm

-kasan

Wide:37mm

Thick:20mm

-kasan/tip

Wide:19mm

Thick:20mm

-tip

Wide:18mm

Thick:20mm

Bow B dimensions. Projection 100-120lbs

Mass 510grams ( includes reflex blocks glued on)

-grip

Wide:21mm

Thick:37mm

-Sal at mid limb

Wide:41.5mm

Thick:14mm

-Sal/kasan

Wide:41mm

Thick:12mm

-kasan

Wide:40mm

Thick:20mm

-kasan/tip

Wide:22mm

Thick:20mm

-tip

Wide:15mm

Thick:24mm

The bows look good! You have a lot of width, something which isn’t exactly shown to this degree in turkish bows. I found one in Adam K’s table that he provides in his book.

Overall the dimensions look just fine and i think you will hit those # numbers. Most likely a bit over because the width is so big. Poundage also comes down to how long the bending sections are. If kasans are really rigid, the bow will be higher weight.

Btw, the horn lamination at the tip doesn’t make much sense oriented like that. Wood is stiffer than horn. If you would like to re-inforce tips with horn, i recommend to cut a saw kerf on the middle of the tip and inser horn there. So that when you make the nock groove, horn prevents tip from splitting. This has been used at least in the crimean tatar bows.

Those bows will make your shoulder work overtime! Remember to take it easy :smiley:

Thanks for your input Jere. Looking at the table from Adam’s book you show here I may be closer to 130lbs on the heavier bow and about 70-80 or more for the other one. With the added final sinew layer it may prove to be even higher. I did leave the horn a little thicker when shaping the cores prior to sinew so I guess I can remove some weight there. I see your point with the horn laminate with maple tips. I didn’t think of that being a problem when I did them but I think you’re right. I had steamed bent these together and glued them that way to be more decorative then anything else not realizing that it could be a weak point. Do you suppose I could add bone side plates on those tips to strength them? The string grooves will be wrapped with sinew below the groove but do you think there would be any benefit to add the side plates? It might be a cool look too with the white bone plates???

No no, don’t worry the tips will be just fine. I just meant to explain its not necessary to put horn that way.

Laminating bone is tricky, but it can be done especially with epoxy. Hungarian bows had horn in the tips.

If i was you, i would reduce the width and then make the final sinew layer wrap around the edges to hide the wood. 35mm finished width would be enough for 50” bow. I mean IF you don’t plan to work out some more. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Hahaha. Yes point taken. I’ve been working out on my draw capacity but with shoulder injuries it’s little progress. I’ve got to be patient. I may have to have someone else shoot it for me if all else fails. I’ll not worry too much over the tips then and continue. I may add some side reinforcements later on if I feel it needs. As for the sinew I’ve got 100grams on each bow now and the final layer has been applied already which wraps around the edge. Unfortunately what I got is what I got for these guys. I’ll know better for next ones to narrow a bit more towards the kasan/tip. I could probably draw an 80lbs bow but it wouldn’t be pretty. I’m hoping to get the lighter weight one at least in that range which would be nice. Thanks again for your insights