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Alternative ways of putting horn bows together

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Gimlis Ghost:

--- Quote from: bownarra on July 04, 2021, 01:44:05 am ---Those bows certainly look cool....but unfortunately they are dogs to shoot.....The best use for those horns is to glue them to a wooden core and sinew back it :)

--- End quote ---

Apparently I didn't exactly rediscover a lost art. I googled up quite a few gemsbok bow builds, and they follow my ideas almost exactly.
It is a chore getting these to shoot well but its been done.
All bending is done with dry heat rather than soaking, 300 degrees F is recommended with any higher resulting in destruction of the horn.
The outer surface is scraped  down back and belly to get the limbs to draw smoothly and tiller without excessive stacking.
The best of these I've seen on another board turned out fantastic. Sinew wrapping the first few inches at the base prevents splitting. Its best to forget making a takedown, though it has been done. Unless securely glued and pinned recoil can increase likelihood of cracking even if the bases are tightly wrapped.
Maximum draw length before the limbs stack to the point they can't be drawn further seems to be short, but if done up properly a 26+ DL can be achieved if the horns are long enough.

PS
Somewhere it was mentioned that a company was using pressed horn. I have a near century old antique pistol with highly decorative grip panels I'd found odd looking because they had damage from being chewed on by tiny insects.so they weren't likely to be synthetic. I looked into it and found these grips were made using steamed and compressed goat horn. The result looked like molded gutta percha or plastic but much more durable. IIRC the Belgian manufacturer of these pistols imported these grips from Turkey.

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