Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Orkraider on March 08, 2010, 01:36:05 am
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I just finished tillering my newest bow, and it's got about 3 1/4" of string follow, or set. This is a lot more than I expected. It's a red oak board bow, 72", 70" nock to nock, just over 70# draw weight at 31 inches.
Is this fixable at this point? If so, how?
And more importantly, is it something to worry about? Do I just leave it, or try and correct it?
any suggestions greatly appreciated.
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Not much you can do now,was it dry or just problems with the tillering ? You might clamp it in reflex
and heat treat the belly,that might help some,most of the damage has been done.It won't hurt anything as long as it is pretty even set and not a hinge causing it.It takes away from the performance but they shoot pretty sweet with some string follow. :)
Pappy
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Like Pappy says...
Anything you do (short of sinew backing) is likely to pull back out (IMHO)
A bit of sting follow is fine, learn to love it especially in self bows...it just shows the wood is working hard>
Would you rather a bit of string follow or spontaneous dissassembly?
Del
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Not much you can do now. Over stressing and moisture are usually what causes set but wood choice for a specific bow style can also be a cause. I think a more appropriate wood could have been used for a 70# bow although the 70" length should help to lessen the stress. What are the dimensions of your bow. Flat belly or radiused?
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It's the bow I posted here: http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,14929.0/topicseen.html
As I said, this is my second bow. I'm still learning, and I want to make my mistakes, accumulate my tools, and learn some skills, as cheaply as possible, as I'm frugal (or as my wife says, one cheap bastige, lol)
The board was a 6' 1" by 2" (dimensional) strip of red oak I got at menards for $4.39
The finished bow is 72" long, 70" notch to notch, it's an american flat bow. I've got it braced to 6.5". It's flat cross section all the way.
It's 1 1/2 inches wide at the fades, down to 5/8" at the notches. For thickness, it ended up at 5/8" at the fades, down to 1/2 inch.
the handle piece is 7 inches long, and the center of the bow hits right between my index and middle finger as I grip it. The narrow part of the handle is 1" wide, and 1 3/8 thick. I might take this down just a wee bit once I decide what type of wrap I want on it. There's no arrow shelf cut into it, and so far I like it that way =)
The tiller looks as smooth as can be to my eye; at full draw, 31" at just over 70#, it's exactly what I was hoping for. I will see if I can dig up a camera after work and put some pictures up.
Basically, I'm very happy with it. The reason for the post is:
I'm planning on putting a cloth backing of some kind on it. Before I do that, and finish up with the sanding , finishing, and wrap, I was wondering if I should fret about this amount of set, and if there's any way to correct it.
If it's not going to have a huge impact on the performance of the bow, I can leave it as is; It doesn't look unappealing to me, it's just all the other nice bows I see on here don't have this much set.
Once again, thanks! This site, and you folks, have been invaluable for me as I get into this.
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How much set? Put the back of the bow up against the wall and measure the tip deflection on both and then take an average. Sorry if I missed it. Jawge
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3 1/4 inches exactly on each limb.
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red oak cannot handle 70 pounds at any length,, way to much stress for a weak wood,,lower poundage ,, if you have trouble finding wood,,,talk to local farmers loggers wood workers,,find a small little hickory tree or limb doesnot need to be very big 6in will make 4 bows,,most people will give you one,,talk to tree trimmers,,, if you you ever come to tn, come to my house I will give you some osage and hickory,,,mike
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well shoot, does that mean this bad boy is just trash?
If red oak can't handle 70#, I guess I could spike it and scrape it down to a lower draw weight?
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If it shoots OK just continue to shoot it. Set doesn't keep a bow from shooting, it keeps it from it's full potential.
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yes string follow makes a bow shoot sweet,, I think some of the old hill bows had bulit in set,,
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Well you have a long draw and it was rather narrow for the weight and draw. I'm confused by that. You said 1 x 2 dimensional so that means it is actually 1.5 in wide. The straightness of the grain on the board determines how heavy a weight you can get from it safely. Anyway, enjoy your bow. Nothing you an do now. More on my site. jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/
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Hey orkraider, "set", is the collapse of the cells in the belly wood. There is really not much you can do on this bow so just shoot it.On your next whitewood bow you might consider heat treating the belly to stand up to your long draw lenght.You can build a simple form out of a 2 X 6.Then, when you have your stave tillered evenly out to what would be your target brace height,heat treat the belly and clamp it into reflex as you treat it.After it cools,you will take it off the form in a nice even reflex.Give the stave 3 days to equalize with the air humidity level,(per Marc St. Louis)then resume tillering.If you take your time and keep the tiller even,you'll end up with very little set,possibly even a little reflex. If any questions just ask. God Bless
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If the bow were bending through the handle I would say 70# would be fine with those demensions. I think with a stiff handle you just asked a bit too much from the wood. be proud it didn't break on you. Usually if wood is dry it is pretty close to breaking by the time you have that much set. If I were to apply my mass principle to that bow I would be looking for about 27 to 28 oz mass weight for dry wood. If you have that much mass your wood may be too high in moisture, but I suspect you are down around 23 oz. Steve
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well I just got home from work, and I have to say, I've been waiting all day to come home and see what you all have had to say.
As usual, I'm really impressed. I learn so much from just about every post I come across on here, and some of the best stuff is learning the words for the things I just plain need to go research.
Badger, Pete, Pat, and Yazoo, you've all given me a lot to thing about.
George, I already found my way to your site, and not only did I bookmark it, but I put a button for it on my quick links bar at the top of my browser window. Dude, you should write a book, I for one, would buy a copy.
I'm going to continue with this bow. I'm going to be putting some finish on it tomorrow, as well as a backing. For a backing, I'm either going to be using 3 layers of drywall tape in a wood glue matrix, or burlap, or silk, depending on what I can find at the thrift store.
If this bad boy breaks, and I'm sure it will eventually, it's going to go up on the wall with the remains of the first one I broke. I've resolved to look at each broken bow as a success, as I'm learning a heck of a lot in the doing.
Once I get this finished and purtified to the point where I"m satisfied with it, I'm going to shoot the heck out of it and see what happens. Then I'm going to start on my next bow while I keep shooting this one.
Yesterday, I did lob a couple arrows towards the river (I'm lucky enough to live right on the banks of the mighty Mississippi), and as far as I and my neighbor could tell, the range was farther than we could see; we were both like "ok, where did the arrow go?"
I have some goals and ideas for bow #3. I want to do another board bow, I want to keep the length at 72" with a nock to nock distance of 70", and I want a draw length of 31" and a draw weight of 70 - 75 pounds.
I'm going to spending some time tomorrow looking for what I can find as far as how thick and wide the board should be, and what kinds of board wood would be suitable for a bow with this draw weight.
Once again, thanks to all of you, and I'm so glad I found my way here. =)
Riley
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Riley, you should only need one layer of backing. I'd go with silk, linen or burlap. Three layers will only add extra physical weight to the limbs and slow the bow down.
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You could sinew the back too also red oak is not weak in my opinion I have seen high poundage ELB made from it but backed with linen.
Russ
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Ok, let me try this again. My wife says I'm grumpy in the morning. I think she's right. LOL. Red oak is a very good bow wood. You just need to design it properly for your needs. You bow at 1.5 in is too narrow for 70# and a huge draw length. That's all.
You can add all the backing you want. You'll just compound (pun intended) the problem. I know. I know. You don't like set. I don't either. But you got it. BTW my first bow had 5 in of set. So what? It shot well. Enjoy your bow as is. For the time you spent talking about it and trying to "fix" it you could have made a couple of board bows. If you want to make a 70# red oak board bow choose a straight grained stave. I mean straight. No run outs. Make it wide. At least 2 inches and may be wider. If you want a a non bending handle of 7 in go at least 72 in tip to and 74 in ntn would be better. Make sure you add the glued on handle from the beginning and make sure when you tiller the tiller taper extends into the board itself. If you make a bend in the handle bow you can go shorter and narrower. One more thing. The amount of weight you can get out of a bow is really related to how good the grain structure is. Get TBB#2. Tim does a great job of explaining that. I need another cup of coffee. :) Jawge
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Hey thanks again, guys. More great answers and info.
George, I'm always glad to read your posts, and although I'd never disagree with anyone's wife (mine has trained me well) you don't come off as grumpy to me.
I'm a bit interested in fixing whatever I can fix with this bow, but I"m more interested in finishing it, and finishing it as right as I can.
I've not always been the best at finishing things, and that's one of the things I"m working on.
Now, when you said in your earlier post that you were confused at the dimensions of the bow for the draw weight, I promise you, I was way more confused. I have no idea what I'm doing, and it's exciting! But thanks to all the good info on here, I'm working on getting rid of some of that confusion.
Now, I'm going to be swinging by menards today to pick up some stuff to put the finishing touches on this bow, i.e. sandpaper, polyurethane, some cord for the grip, etc.
While I'm there, I'm going to be looking at what wood they've got for my next bow.
How wide can I go? If 2 inches or more is good, would 3 inches be even better? 4? And as far as length, can I go up to 7 foot? or would that just be crazy? Granted, I'm all about crazy, and the thought of making a huuuuge bow puts a big smile on my face.
Last but not least, I know they have some other wood there that's not to expensive. I've looked at the mahogony that cost onlly a bit more than the red oak, and often wondered if that would be good.
I read some stuff about white oak that sounded interesting, but I don't recall if they have it in stock there.
I'll post more on here later today. Also, I just made a deal on craigslist to trade coffee for a belt sander. woohoo!
Riley
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If 2 inches or more is good, would 3 inches be even better? 4?
No, there is a fine line between preventing set and needlessly adding mass (which reduces limb efficiency). See Steve's chapter in TBB v4 on the Mass Principle for more explanation.
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ok, will do.
Boy, when I started on bow number one, I remember thinking, "I can put that together for under 20 bucks, that's way cheaper than buying a bow!"
After today's trip to menards, I'm no longer saving money. But I've never enjoyed myself more. =)
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You won't save much money by making only one bow. The unit cost goes down when you make lots of bows. But then, of course, you end up with more bows than you would ever purchase so you still don't save anything. But your friends will ;D
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Gordon, I think I may be following a trend then.
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Last but not least, I know they have some other wood there that's not to expensive. I've looked at the mahogony that cost onlly a bit more than the red oak, and often wondered if that would be good.
I checked out the "mahogany" at menards a while back, even bought the nicest 1x2 the had. But when I did some research I learned that the wood is actually a "Meranti". Luan plywood is the most common type we see, there is a group of 2 or 3 species, and they vary from light in color to deep red. The heaviest of these is called dark red Meranti, and with a Specific Gravity of up to .60, but it can vary, and go as low as .30 for the light red Meranti. The piece I tried ended up freting easily and in the end the bow exploded on the tree, it was really too short anyway. So I would recommend caution with the Menards Mahogany. At best try only a piece that feels heavy compared to the rest. Otherwise stick with good ol' American Red Oak, it's really a great choice for stave shopping at a building material store. I would try a backed cherry or walnut 1x2 before the "mahogany", but you probably won't get 70#+ with them. Good luck, and enjoy that shooter that you have made!
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Lol, Gordon, I surely hope so. Once I start getting a little bit of a handle on this bow making thing, and can turn out something that I"m not ashamed to have seen, my next 3 bows are spoken for. =)
Thanks for the tip, Orc (orcs for the win, yo!) .
I spent more time looking at the wood at Menards; I think my next bow isn't going to be built using a 1x2" piece.
My landlord mentioned a place nearby that sells nothing but wood, 'specially stuff that you might not use to frame a house. He said they're "wood geek friendly", and will do cuts for free even if you're only buying a little bit.
I'm going to check them out, and do some more reading on what kind of not too expensive wood I can get, and what dimensions, for another board bow.
Today, however, I've got about 5 hours of daylight before I have to head in to work; I'm going to spend it flinging sticks with this bow and seeing if it breaks.
Riley
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Well, I took this bow out to my alley and shot it about 30 times.
I'm pretty darned happy with how it turned out. My ignorance is bowmaking is only surpassed by my ignorance in archery, lol. The whole reason I wanted to make a bow in the first place was so I could learn how to use it.
So far, it's working out really slick. With the first bow I made, the arrows were going all over the place, high, low. off to the left, you name it. This one, they're going straight to the target I marked out on the big old tree. Not zinging to the left or right, not too high or low, very flat trajectory, and a super smooth release.
When I put the backing on last night, I ended up using one layer of nice thick linen that I got at the fabric store for a song, (they'll sell you an 1/8 of a yard! for cheap!!) and a layer of lightweight decorative fabric that has a nice dark green spotted pattern, looks almost exactly like the fish skin (halibut?) backed bow that someone posted.
It sure feels like that added a little draw weight; I haven't put it on the scale yet, but it's right at the limit of what I can pull and not have everything shaking like crazy.
I just stumbled across an old web cam, if I can find a usb cable, I'll put some pics up in a few.
Riley
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Everyones right 3 inch is alot and it does slow your bow down.It's over stressed limbs or wood sells.Some people say a little's find.I don't see it.I build mine with none or very little.How many glaas bows built by some fine bowyers.They don't build set into there bows.
I thank it's just peoples way of dealing with it.