Main Discussion Area > Bows
Starting a new ALB
Pat B:
A few years back a friend gave me a 72"x2" locust board and hickory backing. It been sitting in the utility room until today. I decided to build an American Longbow. I cut the locust and backing strip to 68" long. The locust is 11/16" thick, the hickory backing strip is just over 1/8" thick. I cut both to 1 9/16" wide and the bow limbs will have a straight tapered width to the tips. The handle riser is Eastern red cedar with a 4" handle and 4" fades.
I will have to get some glue for this glue-up. I do have Urac but as you can guess it is out of date by now and even though it's been in the refrigerator I dare not use it.
Here are a few pics of the beginning...
Will B:
Looking forward to following this build.
Pat B:
I found a little lateral warp in the stave so I thought I'd try to straighten it with heat. I clamped it to a old, real, pine 2x4 with a thin spacer at the center line holding it to the form and clamped the end to the 2x4 then heated both sides along the limb. I'll give it a few hours at least and see if it straightened. Any slight lateral bend that may remain I'll deal with once I get the back profile cut out and pre-tillered to an even bending state. At that point there will be less wood to move for the correction.
a few more pics...
Pat B:
After the last session I didn't get any movement to straighten the lateral bend so I added a thicker spacer and tried again. This time it got her in pretty good alignment. Then it was time to glue the handle riser to the belly. I used TBIII for this...
...then started the tillering of the belly to get a good, even bend before glue up. At floor tiller it looked like she was bending pretty good so I placed her of the form to see just how good. The blocks on the form are 3 1/4" high where the tips rest. Then I draw the handle area down to see how the side view looks in reflex. I still need a little evening up on each limb...
George Tsoukalas:
Pat, I am looking forward to this build along. Jawge
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