Main Discussion Area > Bows
Eastern Woodlands build Part 1
JoeC:
I'm enjoying following your build, Mike! Looking forward to more.
Joe
Selfbowman:
Good build Mike. I like your detail in the build. Good info for the beginner and the ones that have built for years. We never quit learning in this bow making stuff.
M2A:
I heat treat every locust piece I work on Dave. It works well for me. I think its helps with compression. Hope to do the sencod treatment soon, but been delayed a bit the last few days.
Zugul, I do keep a bottle of olive oil on the bench and use that when heating. I started doing that because thats how people said it was done, to spread out the heat better. I do think it helps prevent scorching the wood from my experience. With the side bends I heat it up and then attempt to straighten most of the time. I will try and be more detailed when I try and remove that dogleg soon. As far as the reflex I work from the middle of the bow towards the tips and keep some pressure at the tip and increase after each 6" area I treat. I have pulled the fibers in the belly apart on compressed trained belly wood before this way and so thats why on this one I got some reflex in it as soon as i did. I will try and find one in the corner of shame and get a pic. Where do you run into problems with locust?
Thanks Del and Joe!
Thanks Arvin! Hope this can show some guys newer to this or thinking about trying that if I can do it so can they. This style IMO works for any hardwood at these dimensions for a normal draw length. I like how you add reflex in the outers and thats where I got the idea. If it works for flight bows no reason it cant for a good target bow. I didnt reflex the inner limbs so any set will give it a deflex/reflex profile. not that thats how you want to get there but its going to happen.
Lots to work to go still and hope to get back to working on it tonight.
Mike
Zugul:
--- Quote from: M2A on January 10, 2024, 09:56:25 am ---Zugul, I do keep a bottle of olive oil on the bench and use that when heating. I started doing that because thats how people said it was done, to spread out the heat better. I do think it helps prevent scorching the wood from my experience. With the side bends I heat it up and then attempt to straighten most of the time. I will try and be more detailed when I try and remove that dogleg soon. As far as the reflex I work from the middle of the bow towards the tips and keep some pressure at the tip and increase after each 6" area I treat. I have pulled the fibers in the belly apart on compressed trained belly wood before this way and so thats why on this one I got some reflex in it as soon as i did. I will try and find one in the corner of shame and get a pic. Where do you run into problems with locust?
--- End quote ---
Thanks for your replay. In the past I ran into problems with locust when I tried to bend it without oil, as soon as it changed colour only a bit it became very stiff and bending it more resulted in cracks. Other than that I've always messed up my initial tillering stages, I think because my thickness taper wasn't very consistent from the get go. To solve this problem I got an outside caliper wich I'll use to ensure my taper is gradual and steady, without thick or thin spots.
M2A:
I think thickness taper is very important as well Zugul. Otherwise the bends may not be consistent. Still no where as good as I would like to be and still learning and figuring things out myself. below is a picture from an older project where I watched a belly tension crack appear while trying to reflex a piece of osage. just the weight of the bow as leverage and gravity but was already worked in compression a good bit. Was the easy example to find but I had done this in the past with locust. Prim reason I put the reflex in this piece before I really started tillering
IMG_5863 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Just no room in the shop for a string and pully tillering set up so I just use a tillering stick. Not the best but its what I got and have always done. The problem is its too hard to get good picture as I dont want to hold the bow at target weight for the time it takes to get the picture. But its 42 lbs at 22 inches still. I figured its best to make a few heat correction to closer line up the string and then heat treat again. Seeing how i did not get it all out the first time with heat treating the bow before I really wanted to do a good job this time. Figured I would get any sideways bends out 1st. I dont turn the heat gun up as high just doing that as I am not looking to change the color of the wood really, just get it up to temperature to bend. Here are my heat gun notes I made up from trial and error. Right/wrong idk but its what i use.
IMG_5854 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Here is a before picture showing where the dogleg is.
IMG_5853 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
I need to move enough to get the tip 3/4" over and that should center the tip to handle area
takes a good bit longer with the lower temperature but I think it allows the heat to penetrate better
IMG_5856 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Over bent about 3/4" to allow for some spring back
IMG_5862 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Pretty close now.
IMG_5864 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Only problem now is I will need to clamp real well for the heat treating so correction does not get heated back to how it was.
Didn't know how to word most of that so just kind of winged it. Hope it all makes sense, didn't proof read. I need to look at weather or not to make slight adjustments near each nock or leave well enough alone. Otherwise hope to do the final heat treat this weekend and then I hope to work it up to brace height. The wood is a little lighter than I like but I still feel pretty good about it and closing in on full draw so fingers crossed.
Mike
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version