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Black Bamboo - Purple Heart - Osage Orange Carriage Bow

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Lehtis:
Snowy Greetings from Finland.

Got to start this project because of my previous bow broke after couple of thousands arrows; itīs black bamboo backing broke. Anyway, I stubbornly wanted to use black bamboo again for this new takedown bow to be able to travel easier to England next February to sling arrows in IFAAīs Indoor World Championship Competition.

So, I chose black bamboo for back, purple heart for core and osage orange for belly and glued them to reflexed stave with Smooth-On EA40. Then I cut the stave at itīs mid point and fitted take down sleeves on the halves.

Lehtis:
Then scraping and sanding as usual to achieve proper tiller... until in the final end the difficulties started: I heard an unpleasant "crack" caused  by popping splinter from lower limbīs bamboo back. Looks like that bamboo is not good at tension.

First I almost gave up but on next morning I diceded to try something new I have not done before. I carfully added some epoxy under the splinter, squeezed it down. The next step was to glue a moistened rawhide patch over the splinter area with TiteBond III. When the patch was dry I carefully sanded both limbs and covered them with rawhide hoping the best. When dry more sanding to remove excess TB III and back to tillering. Surprisingly no new explosions and the tiller and pounds were as before the crack.

Lehtis:
So, it looks like the rawhide patch and backing saved the bow and I was able to finalize the bow by sanding and shaping the nocks and installing the arrow pass; all water buffalo horn. Then some one hundred arrows without problems and I was ready to coat the bow. First two layers of stained wood wax to cover the rawhide and visible bamboo at sides. Then several layers of TruOil, leather handle and some more TruOil and the bows was ready. The string is polyester (16 strands of BCY 55, to meet IFAAīs rules) from the earlier broken bow. Some more shooting and the bow is still alive.

Lehtis:
The bow is 71" long ntn, draws 80 lbs @ 28" and got name "The Leatherback" for obvious reason.

... and some more pics ...

superdav95:
Gorgeously done.  Good save.  That black bamboo is hard stuff.  Good luck at your competition. 

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