boo backed bamboo bow

[superdav95]

  Dave somewhere you had mentioned shooting a fresh bow that had never been taken to full draw. I know of some real-world cases, and it is dramatic! I made an English longbow for Josef. He broke a world record with it at 450 yards. The bow had been tillered to 28", and on his first shot in practice, he drew it further than 28 and shot 530 yards. Another bow I had, I was working on a bow between rounds at the flight shoots. The bow I was working on was just a regular straight bow with about 1" reflex natural. Just for fun I decided to shoot it without ever having drawn it back before and I hit 387 yards. with a 50# bow. If you test this on a crono you will see how dramatic the results are. Build a simple shooting machine and use it with a scale in line that can hold the pondage reading. Tiller your bow out to about 24" tops and when you project it will hit 50# put it on the shooting machine. It is amazing how much we loose even on our best bows.

Yes! Badger.  I hear you.   Those are impressive numbers.  My plan for this bow is to only take it to 24” and forecast as best I can to hit 70lbs.  Whether that’s at 26” or 27” or more I believe the limbs can handle it.  The limbs have shown to take little set thus far and so I may just bring it to the flats and see.  I’ll be sure to have an assortment of arrow lengths in case on the day.  I get your point and it is well taken.   I think I will have a pretty good idea of where I will need to draw it to on the day by looking at the previous draw curve numbers and the new numbers.   Thanks again everyone for your input.   

[superdav95]

well that didnt work as I hoped!  Heres are the numbers.  see the pics below on the comparisons.  the first set of numbers are before removing an inch off the tips and braced at 6.5".  The right column of numbers are after the removal and braced slightly higher in hopes to eek out a pound or two more.  didnt work really.  its actually less early draw weight then before which puzzles me a bit.  it catches back up at around 18" and then gains a couple pounds or slightly more each inch after this.  could this still be a decent bow? maybe but i think ill just make a new one before the flats.  here are some pics.  It still looks good and i did take a little more set.  immediatley after string and doing the draw numbers curve i retained a reflex of 1.75". prior to this it was around 2" so lost about a 1/4" right after unstrung.  it crept back to 2" after about 5-10 mins. Thats a good sign.   This is where this bow is at now I have to accept this and not the 5-7pounds increase i was hoping for.  oh well thats the way it goes sometimes.  I deceided to take it out to he garage and shoot it a little.  Its actually a very nice and smooth shooter.  only drawing to maybe 24-25". No noticable handshock and felt silky smooth.  If not destined for the flats at least a half decent shooter.  I may put some more permanent wraps on it and stain it up and see if it performs even better at my draw length of 29".  I was worried about the tips having too much weight but seems good.  Anyway on to the next one.  I do think there is some potential for this type build in this simple composite class.  Ill learn from this one and apply it to the next.  More to come!  thanks for following along.

[sleek]

A higher brace will reduce early draw because the higher the brace, the less leverage the limbs have over the string. You should keep the brace as low as you can, while making it not hit your wrist and maintain good arrow flight. The more the limbs bend, the lower your string tension gets.

[superdav95]

A higher brace will reduce early draw because the higher the brace, the less leverage the limbs have over the string. You should keep the brace as low as you can, while making it not hit your wrist and maintain good arrow flight. The more the limbs bend, the lower your string tension gets.

Ok. That makes sense.   Thanks Kevin!