I’ve made many 56 to 60 TTT inch long hornbows and usually I try for about 9/16" or 14 mm thickness or a scooch less starting at the fades.All are 1.25" wide there.
Lowering length to 52" will gain draw weight a fair amount at the same thickness and width.
With a 52"T TT I’m sure that’ll change being shorter while remaining 1.25" wide.
I’m always able nowadays dialing this type bow in to get a 50 to 55 pound with my different percentages of wood/horn/and sinew off the peg board to brace.
My plans with the 52" bow are to have 10" working limbs with the remaining 10" of the limb to slowly thicken but narrow to the tip.Bow will be D/R and hoping to reflex it a good 10" or so.
Looking at Adam Karpowiczs’ book for pointers his starter bow is 47" long and 5" shorter yet and 13mm or close to 9/16" thick,but 28 mm or 1 and 1/8" wide.
Would anyone have some insight as to what thickness I should be going for?
I’m guessing a scooch over 1/2" or 13mm thick and still 1.25" wide to get my 50 to 55 pound bow yet.
Sorry I did not read your full reply about tournament shooting etc.80 yards is quite poke…ha ha.You should be congratulated though!!!Estonia…I’ll have to look where that is at…ha ha.
I feel good if I get 3 out of 5 shots into an 8" circle at 40 yards…ha ha.
The so called norwegian maple here I think is close to silver maple and not very dense.I call them coon den trees as they go hollow pretty quick. There are hard sugar maples in town,but they are for show and fall colors.The hard sugar maple does grow in my state natively but not in my area or on my land.
My ironwood is pretty darn knarly and perfect wood from them is hard to get.Usually making character self bows with that stuff.
I’ll have to look up that veritas strap outfit.That like putting a hacksaw blade over the outside bend while bending?
My bend on this hickory will not be that extreme.I should’nt need a strap.If I get 45 degrees I’ll be happy.That’s enough recurve on the last 6" I figure.
I will take your advice about the splice gap.I’ll rely on the 1/8" to 3/16" thick sinew there to help it out.I see what you mean about me having to remove wood from the handle farther to get my deflex.
I could reduce width to 1 and 3/16".That might only take 5 pounds at the most off while still using the same thickness parameters.I’ve done some side tillering before.Sounds like a plan to me…ha ha.
Years ago I saw a self bow maker wanting to get into flight shooting.He devised this type looking bow length and poundage but with just wood and I think trying just some sinew also.Deflexing with heat right out of the fades and recurving at the ends.Over drawing it to the point of me feeling sorry for the piece of wood…ha ha.
From experience avoiding set with self bows I kept telling him to go to composites if he wanted that design to work better.He never did.Some just refuse to work with horn.
A while later he finally increased the length and did do some good at the salt flats with his bow.
I’m going to have a book written here pretty soon gabbing…ha ha.I have found the edit button now so they’ll be lesser numbered replys…ha ha.
That is such a long bow for hornbow that i dont have any experience. I did go and measure my tatar bow, its 125cm long so about 50" and 12,7mm thick midlimb (1/2") and 37mm wide (1 1/2"). But the bow is about 90# at 30". Angles are different and so on, so i dont know how representative it is, but it could work as a reference.
Thank you! Its fun, even though there is not many hits at 80y.
I think these bows can be made with lesser woods, its just that stronger woods make them less prone to cracking if there are slight mistakes. Sometimes even experienced bowyers leave kasan eye too thin and then because of excessive stress there, you end up breaking the limb even though you have sinew there.
But if we would use lesser woods, it should be at least lighter! Then mass of bow could be lowered, without effecting poundage - therefore increasing arrowspeed.
About the grip joint, if you go and look for korean hornbow making in youtube, there you can find really ugly joinery - even made by so called masters! They just dont care, cause they rely on thick sinew there. And obviously it works.
Heh, i met Kevin in last september at salt flats. He had some super wide osage bows with him. He did quite good but didn’t quite make a new record if i remember correctly. Same with Chuck Loeffer.
There is plenty of knowledge available about bowbuilding and even flight shooting. I guess people want to go their own way. Records don’t lie though!
You met Kevin huh.He;s quite a number…ha ha.I constantly preached on the PA about putting wood where the strain is showing self bows with low set and reflex.Maybe he got the hint.Talked to Chuck many times also.Enjoy his videos.Maticulas sheep horn bow maker.Talk about thick sinew layer…ha ha.I always was going to send him some hickory in his dry arrid enviornment.Bet it would perform great.
I really think reducing width 1/16" to 1 and 3/16" wide instead of 1 and 1/4" wide
or 2 mm will do the trick getting me to my draw weight.If not I’ll put on some more sinew…ha ha.What I don’t want to do is come in way over weight.I hate removing any horn.
I used to shoot 65 pound bows but no more…ha ha.
Well I’m going to make my V splice joint good and they are.I’ll fill in the gap with combed flax and glue.I don’t like the idea of air between any glue joint.
Been working on the deflex here.Got it to about 1/2" at the middle of the handle in the picture.It does’nt take much to get a more rounded full draw.
Alignment looks spot on.I’ll dry heat form some more reflex into those outer limbs after handle glue up.I got it 9/10’s of the recurve through steaming.It’ll temper in the recurves to stay put also.
Hickory is very difficult to dry heat bend compare to osage or even elm.Steaming is the way.Hickory is denser than elm,maple,or even ironwood and is my next densest wood I’ve got besides osage.
Being a hornbow, the core could have some 10-15" of net reflex at this shape. Outer limbs would need to be quite reflexed if handle is on deflex to achieve that 10-15".
Reflex would make the bow gain a lot of speed.
That’s the plan Jere…ha ha.A good 10" of reflex.I will get some of that reflexing the outer limbs and some glueing the horn on.Can’t help but feel like it’s christmas waiting for these horn bows…ha ha.
The most I could reflex all wood bows without breaking and be durable and viable was 8"to 9" retaining 6" or so.Then the bows needed a little more mass to stand up to it too,mostly on the inner limbs.
With sinew and horn it’s completely different.Mass weight goes down and the reflex goes up.
I could be wrong but I expect the bow to come in with a mass weight of around 15 ounces or less maybe??
I’ve noticed now that one V splice is 1/16" shorter of seating into female part.Fitting is A no.1 though.That should’nt do any harm I don’t think???
It’ll just mean 1 limb will be 1/16" longer is all…ha ha.
What i mean that now when building the core, for more performance you could steam limbs into even more reflex. We are talking about different things here. Sure, not adding 10-15" reflex before laying sinew, it will be easier to tiller and so on. Because 10-15" reflexed core will be 15-20" reflexed after sinew.
I see what you mean.Crazy…Well it’s easy to reflex pretapered limbs with a heat gun.I’ve got the forms I’ve used before.On that length of bow I could add 6" before glueing on horn then adding another 4 or 5 inches.All before sinewing.I can reflex the limbs from 0 to any reflex I want with reverse bracing also.
The most reflex I’ve tillered on my peg board has been 15" on a 60" TTT bow.After tillering it kept 12" of reflex.Shot arrows 6 hours later from 10".Got it settled and shot in with 300 arrows.It was a good performer.It’s too bad I broke it by accident while bracing it
I’ll think about it…ha ha.
One of the reasons why the last horn bow I made was only at 11".I made it to be more user friendly stringing it up.
My FG shooting hunting buddies wince every time they see me string the bow up with the primitive stringer…ha ha.
They just don’t want to understand.
I totally get it if not all want to have that crazy reflex. For some designs it makes them unstable.
You have more experience about this kind of longer bow so make your own decisions.
I brace my hornbows between my legs. It works after some practice, but sure is risky. I haven’t broken any bows like that though. Heaviest i have braced is 130# hornbow or 145# glassbow.
Between the legs is good if a person does it right.You’ve got it down then.I’m always afraid of putting too much strain on one limb so I use a primitive stringer.
No… If the net reflex (measured from back side of the bow) is same, the deflex handle bow have more pretension and thus the bow stores more energy. I should play more with VirtualBow to have conclusion why deflexed handle is so adavantageous.
If you have two identical bows, without a thick handle piece. Then you put a thick handle piece on the belly side of the first bow and back side of the second bow, what is difference between these bows? The second bow with the handle piece on the back side is pretressed less than the first bow. Why? Lets measure the brace height from the belly side of the bow, from the fulcrum of the handle. Then you have to bend the first bow more to have the same brace height than the second bow, so the first bow have greater string tension, and thus prestressed more.
In my opinion, the only sensible way to measure a net reflex or deflex of a bow is measure a distance between handle fulcrum point (the same point when measuring brace height) and nock grooves. Then it is easy to discern the difference between “belly handled” and “back handled” bow.
Had to go back to virtual bow to test and you are right. Weird. I thought it was the opposite. I guess its because of the string angle being so much better in deflexed handle version. Better leverages to pull.
One thing that with wood bows is crucial, is that the deflexed handle lowers stress by some 10%. Which is quite a lot when we know how easily wood is overstressed. Especially when building flight bows or heavier bows.
Good point. Turkish grip allows for lower brace height. Lower brace gives higher efficiency. Higher efficiency gives better speed on low arrow weight. Low arrow weight dominates flight!
I should try pushing braceheight on my turkish flightbows down to 6,5"-7" from belly. I’ve had a bad habit of having almost up to 8".
The scenario of keeping the reflex identical at 1.5" on front or back handled bows to above the back side of the handle to me just means that the limbs are reflexed more on the front handled bow actually.I could possibly have that wrong though.
That could be the reason why the deflexed bow casts faster.
Not sure if brace stress is less then the front handled bow though.Even though deflexed handled bows are supposed to get a higher brace height with less stress.
It’s easy to get conflicting conclusions if you think about it too long.
Here I now have a flush flat surface on the belly of the handle with no air gaps from the deflexed mounting of the limbs.Ready for horn glue up.I used combed flax and hide glue applying it proud and fileing it flat again.
I’ve fixed a few self bows from splinters before with this combo.
It looks like I can get by with a pair of 18.75" butted horn.
On such a bow of only 50#'s and sinew over it on the back side it’s probably overkill but like I said it does’nt make sense to me to have air gaps on any glue joint.
Now I’ve just got to wait for more horn in the mail…ha ha.
It’s not much deflex,[about 1/2"] but I believe it’s enough to make a difference.
The recurves are a good 45 degrees also and believe that’ll be enough to make the full draw experience pleasant for my 28" draw.
No goals of anything but a good durable efficient hunting bow here,and the principles are the same as efficient self bows with lightweight outer limbs.
With the limbs on this bow it’s not too complicated or of much labor…ha ha. Before I mounted them on the handle I used flat grained straight grained limbs with the crown on the backside after establishing a flat surface on the belly side.Then merely took the crown off leaving straight lines on the back side in thickness tapering.
With not using this type handle much I’m still curious about handle shaping.Can one reduce it flush with the top of the limb knowing 3/16" of sinew will be on top along with the horn underneath of course?Leaving more wood exposed really does’nt help much.I guess I could crown or round it some though.
I’ve looked a Jere’s flight bow cores shaped in may of 2023.It shows on them to be flush and rounded along with the limbs.
Anyway, i always work the core smooth on both sides after grip joinery. What i don’t mind are these small holes that are left from the apex of the grip joint. I guess those could be filled with glue too.
Like here, i cut the grip piece excess flush with limb and then just carry on.
I would recommend to shape them round. You know the proper dimensions you want for the middle of grip. And from there a nice taper into limb would be nice, right?
Heh, last one of those 2023 bows was the one i took to istanbul. I missed the line by 4 meters, losing me the 3rd place and price money. If i had just shot a lighter bow, i would have placed better…!!
So when one steps up to the line to shoot it’s a matter of who can shoot an arrow the farthest.Wide open parameters?Or are there classes also?I’d have to look at the rules I guess.
I’ve only gone through maybe a dozen pair of horn strips but did have one that was cracked.It’s grain was funny also like it was injured while young or something.
Getting them from some guy in India.
I know Steve Gardner would save a bow after seeing it to not take much set and test it.Then lay it aside for an upcoming event.
I helped him once put on a broadhead flight shoot at Mo Jam.A lot of fun,but hot and humid.I won complex composite bow category…ha.ha,but not overall distance winner.Next year I won it again.That’s when I found out it’s not exactly all about the bow.The arrow has a lot to do with it also.The fletching etc.
We all shot 10 grain arrows to the draw weight of the bow being shot.Draw length limited to all at 28".Distances shot were limited to just under 225 yards.
Yes that little gap I was’nt worried about as much showing at the point of the V splice,but thanks for the pointer.The gap on the belly side I filled with combed flax and hide glue to make it perfectly smooth to accept the horn flush across the surface…ha ha. Could of mounted it a little different I guess but I did’nt want to remove handle material and wanted to leave as much forward on the handle as possible.I’ll shape the core and handle round.Crown the horn also.I like a clean looking bow.All according to Adams’ book anyway.
I’ll glue the horn on with pad strips and C clamps.Done it lots of times and get good invisible glue lines.
I’m already thinking of some way to decorate it…ha ha.I always do that.Never learn.
He had some super wide osage bows with him. He did quite good but didn’t quite make a new record if i remember correctly. Same with Chuck Loeffer.
