Main Discussion Area > Horn Bows
First attempt build a long !
Aaron H:
Nice and flat for sure. Looking good. (-P
BowEd:
Nice work that drum sander does.Wish I had one myself.My friend Grant does an hour away.Horns' looking good bud.A butt joint 2.5" from the tip should work ok.The joint should be dead nuts square with each other and be hardly noticeable.No wrap should be needed either IMHO.It should be hardly working at that area with your length limbs and be very thin.1/16" thin or less really.You can wrap and match it on the other for looks for self security confidence reasons though.
Stick Bender:
I will make sure every thing is square when I get there I'm going to leave the butt peace long until I get the joint perfect ,yes the drum sander is a real time saver for making all kinds of lams, if I was going to use the belt sander I was going to take the flat board and put 2 aluminum 3/16 flat stock peaces on ether side of the horn like rails put in place with the carpet tape and put painters tape on top of the flat stock and run that upside down on the belt sander and when the sand paper started taking off the tape it would be close to the 3/16 or better kinda a thickness gauge just a thought for some body that has a belt sander or you could develope some talent & due like Ed did...lol Aarin don't know if there's much to watch just kind of feeling my way threw it here ,Next I'm going to make up a templet of the limb dimentions that Ed sent and lay the horn out I'm going to wait tell I make the core for final cuts on the horn just in case there's any changes !
Stick Bender:
One thing I'm learning about prepping water buffalow horn is you get far less usable horn then you think in the pic those sets range from 50-75 cm & none of them will give me the 19 1/2 in. I need for this long bow type composite with out butt jointing but would be perfect for Magyar or Turk bow but the Gemsbok horn has a lot of length compared to the water Buffalo horn & would be well suited for the long bow type composite , I'm going to use butt jointed water Buffolow horn on this build , but for any body thinking about building one Gemsbok horn would be a cheaper solution too !
mikekeswick:
Bear in mind that you don't need horns that long anyway. You caould safely end the horns a few inches earlier and simply shape the core to stop any bending in the outer limbs.
Virtually everybodies first composite (after making wood bows) is understrained. 19 inches of horn would make a bow that is capable of being drawn way past 30 inches. There is no need to play it safe with these materials! Also more bend near the handle is a good thing, the limbs are thicker there and have a faster return speed than the thinner outer limbs. Bending closer to the handle (without outer limb bend) gives the tip a longer return path. Longer non bending outer limbs can be lighter (narrower) than bending outer limbs.
Gemsbok is ok horn but you can run into problems with it being too thin after flattening and you need to heat them quite a bit to flatten the concavity across the width. Which is a shame! Just remember you do not need all that length unless making a Manchu bow and have a 36 inch drawlength haha!
After prepping these horns can you see why the Turks used concave/convex horn/cores? :)
A useful ratio is bow length to potential drawlength. bow length of 48" / 1.6 = 30 inch draw.
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