Primitive Archer

Cool bow Dave  - and very well made of course! Whenever I see one of those Boo-backed/and-bellied bows I got rememeberd to my personal bucket list. Still a few glue-up problems to solve for me. Bamboo belly should be awesome I imagine. cheers

Thanks Simon!  I’ve only had two of these survive mind you but I suspect that the issue with the one that blew up was more about week spot at a node on the backing lamination that was the cause.  I had done the same process but again only out to 20” draw.  This failure didn’t present itself until approaching full draw.  I noticed a hinge developing getting out to about 26”  I initially thought it was bad glue up but upon examining further it was clear that the boo was weak at the node just down from where the hinge was happening.   Anyway I should have taken some pics to document better but ended up in my burn pile with the rest of my failures.  Lol.  I would consider doing a tutorial or build along once I get a few more of these under my belt.  Still testing these really.  So far I’ve put about 150 through this latest build and it has settled in nicely.  The first one I did that survived last year I have reduced the draw weight to 50lbs.  I did this by filing down the inner nodes on belly like this latest one.  Seemed to have worked.  Put a few more shots through it and all seems good.   I’m gonna leave this one now and hopefully get it to the flats for distance shoot.  Fingers crossed.   The belly slat is important to get thin at the fades area in order to get good glue up where the ramp fade is.  I’ve tried heating up and pre bending these with some success too but find that there is a risk of splitting due to it being so thin.  Thickness of the strings are just under .095”. The bending part of limb is about .120-.125” tapering down to .090-.095” out at the tip ends.  I measure this carefully for both lams to get the same prior to glue up.  I keep these bows narrow and it helps with maintaining consistency due to the crown of bamboo slats.  I get choosy on my boo slats to pick the flattest sections I can to avoid excessive crown.  I also heat treat my blood lams when they are about 1/8” thick and then thin them from there and put in tapers.  Boo takes very well to heat treatment as far as increased resistance and performance and mass.  Anyway I’m rambling here.  Thanks for looking. 

Tandy leather has some 6 count linen that would require about 10 strands on that design. It seems like a rope but it works.

I’ve got some number 35 3 cord flax linen from Barbour.  I’ve been trying to get it to hold in my tensioner rig for stretching string without breaking.   I wonder if my Flemish twist are too tight perhaps and the linen is cutting itself or wearing on itself being abrasive when twisted.   I’ll keep testing this out and post a pic of one when it survives.  I can’t find the string you speak of here.  The site I went to shows li en but doesn’t give info on thread count. 

Amazing bow; great job.

What draw weight were you chasing when tillering it prior to putting the belly lam on?

OK Pappy, you know how much we like pics here so lets see pics of the new pup.

Yep, we will see how it goes, Sister is not as social as Sally was but seemed to warm up to Annie after a bit yesterday, they stayed together in the kennel last night, looking forward to seeing how they done this morning  The first night I put Sister in the kennel with Sally , Sally put her out of the house, the second night the curled up together and the rest is history.  Hope this works out the same. Headed down this morning early for the weekend so maybe we can get more acquainted , she is a sweet thing and love to be petted. Ya Pat I didn't think we would get drawn at least not for 2 elk, and yes it is my turn but I am fine with the trip either way and much rather see Beau get another than me, just love the time I get to spend with him and the adventure of it all. Now I got to get to work and get this old body in shape, been doing about 2 miles 2 or 3 time a week for about a month with 30lb pack, but it time to pick that up a bit, gold is 5 miles and 60lbs. should be there by August if all goes well.  Hope yall have a good one. Life is Good. 
 Pappy