Bow build along...

[OOBuck]

Well, after thinking about it for a while and resourcing many sites on the net I purchased some wood for my new long bow last night..

I'm building a laminated or "lam bow" from hickory strips a friend of mine was nice enough to give me a hand to cut last night on his table saw. NOTE, I'm not to wood working friendly, give me steel ok but wood....

I took a piece of rough hickory 1" x 4" x 6' and ripped strips 1 5/8" wide. I'm thinking the finished bow will be about 1 1/2" at the thickest point. I then took the strips and cut 1/4" strips lengthwise getting 2 from each and a nice small 3mm piece as well. I left one of the strips at apx 3/8" by not cutting 2, 1/4" strips off of it, this will give me lots of options.

So here's the plan, I want a reflex /deflex to be about 40-50Lbs max, a nice long bow to drag out to 3D shoots. I'm planning on using the 3/8" strip as the center section or base. I'm going to sand the strip smooth and attempt to taper the limbs evenly with the narrowest point at the tip. I will then lam a sanded strip to the base with possibly a carbon fiber cloth between the two. I'll attempt to post some pictures as I go... Off to borrow my brother-inlaws sander...

Check out the lam strips here...

http://www.actiontrans.net/strip1.jpg
http://www.actiontrans.net/strip2.jpg
http://www.actiontrans.net/strip3.jpg

[Bighorn hunter]

Can't wait to see some progess pics.Looks like a fun project.

bhh

[Grantmac]

Read-up a lot on tillering R/D designs, they are appearently very tricky. I just glued-up my first one yesterday from Bamboo and Ipe, I'm hoping for the same weight range and use as you are.
Don't be disappointed if you end-up under weight, it's very common with your first attempts. Remember that weight in the tips is your enemy, it will slow down your arrow and cause handshock. Glue does no work so try to use as few glue-lines as possible, especially at the tips.
Hickory is not very compression strong, so keep the belly at least as wide or wider than the back.
I look forward to seeing your progress. You might want to just use reflex on this first try, it would make the tillering a lot easier and won't significantly alter the performance.
Cheers,
Grant

[Sideofabarn]

Very cool. Make sure you keep us in the loop with the stages of the build, and include the pics for the other archery geeks out there!

[OOBuck]

more headway..

I picked up some cherry for the handle today.

I sanded the 3mm lams which are now about 1.5mm thick strips. I sanded the main lamb strip the 3/8" thicker one to a taper on either end. I simply measured from the tips in 24" towards the center of the strip and drew a line down the edge then sanded the tapered.

I hope to get the cherry handle glued up tomorrow and cut it out the following day. I'm planning on laming a hickery strip between to layers of cherry.

Being that this is my first bow I'm also planning on making the limbs a bit thicker than I think necessary so I can always drop the draw weight if necessary by sanding extra off.

Tillering... This might be a issue but I guess theres only one way to find out. I can see the twist or "tiller" in every limb by simply bending it slightly. I hope that once glued that it will be decreased..

I picked up bow wrap or better known as stretch wrap for packaging items I will use this to hold the pieces together while glueing by simply wrapping and stretching it from the center out towards the tip then place the bow in a reflex/deflex jig I'm also building. I also picked up West Systems cold cure epoxy today and hope this stuff is going to be flexable enough for the glue on the limbs.

More pictures to follow soon

[OOBuck]

Well, change of plans.. The cherry was just so nice I decided to add a couple of cherry lams to the limbs. I cut the cherry on a table saw the same way I did the hickory only slightly thinner. I'll add that I didn't have a piece of cherry that was long enough so I'll have to join the lams with the taper joint in the center prior to glueing the thing together..

So the stack up will be hickory, cherry, hickory, cherry handle, 1.5mm hickory backing.

Here's the photos:

tapered backing


the stack up



taper joint on cherry lam




more to come..

[The Hermit]

Cool!!! Are you doing this in the shop or at home??

[OOBuck]

Cool!!! Are you doing this in the shop or at home??

Home,, shops too oily & greasy.. I'll bring in the bits to show you tomorrow..

[Bowzone_Mikey]

ohhhhhhhhh___-Ahhhhhhhhhhh_____

Nice work so far ... Lookin forward to seeing it in action ...

[OOBuck]

I made a ton of headway including pictures but my POS new Fuji digital camera seems to have issues with my computer...!!!!! And thats being polite! Let me put it this way,,, If I spent that much time on the bow as I did the camera it would be done...

So I glued the handle to the backing last night, I glued the two cherry lams together at the taper joint to make one long piece... hopefully to save time.

Then I built a reflex/deflex jig.. I built it from a 2x4x8' nice and flat..
A reflex/deflex jig is used when glueing all the lams together to hold the bend in the limbs. I have really nice picture of this jig and even taped a single hickory lam in so you could see how it work, but then again my camera is a POS..

I'm planning on glueing the bow as soon as the cherry lam & handle are dry. I can see why you might need a heat box to dry the epoxy faster, its' like watching paint dry...

I can say one thing the cherry handle & lam look really nice with the epoxy that dripped on them I can wait to see them finished.

I'll try & get some pictures again to night with my old digital camera..