Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Shooter on September 20, 2010, 08:23:30 pm
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I've been building with bamboo flooring for a few years now and thought I'd show a few I've built over the last couple of weeks.
The R/Ds both have tempered lam-boo bellies.
The shorter one has a maple riser, canary core and hickory back with rawhide. It's 60.5" o/a and 59 ntn. It draws 55#@28". I left the rawhide natural because the guy I built it for didn't want any dark colors. It's got a very smooth draw, nice and quiet, and is one of the faster bows I've built.
The longer one has a canary riser with purpleheart core and hickory back with rawhide I dyed to kinda match the canary. It's 63.75" o/a and 62.75" ntn. It draws 60#@28. Quiet, smooth and no stack even out to 29". Fast and accurate to boot.
Both bows took about 1/2 inch of set and about as much string follow. They come back within a couple of minutes after they're unstrung. That's my son in the full draw pics
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looks good, cant wait for the full draw shots.
n2
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more pics
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risers
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more
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55#@28
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60#@28
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Here's a lam-boo backed canary D-section longbow. I've been backing my longbows with bamboo flooring for a while now and haven't had any problems with it. Canary is my wood of choice but I've used lam-boo to back hickory, cherry and ash as well.
I had this one finished when I decided to draw it past 30". Stupid move. I chrysaled one of the side-knots on the lower limb and had to patch it. I saw another grain variation a couple of inches further up the limb that was suspect. Canary has some very tight figuring and I wasn't sure if it was that or another chrysal. I couldn't feel any ridge, though, but decided to play it safe and patched that as well. It still shoots great. I lashed some red and black cotton over the patches and matched it on the top limb. I used purpleheart for the overlays and cotton handle sealed in Gorrila wood glue. Teak & tung oil finish.
69.75" o/a
67.25" ntn. 55#@30"
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I don't know why the full draw pics show the limbs all distorted like that. When I open the pics in another window they look proper ???
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Thems some fine lookin bows there sir.Very good job and i bet they shoot hard too!!Good Job!!
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full draws look fine to me , great work nice to see something different
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Thanks, Ken. Glad you liked em.
Thwackaddict, the 60 lb R/D is a very hard hitter indeed. It piled up the heads and flared the shafts on several of my medium weight aluminarrows before I clued in.
n2, hope the full draws didn't disappoint
Bruce
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gives me a whole new respect for boo flooring!
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I really like them,especially the last one. Nice work. :)
Pappy
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Really ;ike the longbow. The patch job looks great.
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Good job on all them, but that Canary bow is sweet!
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Very satisfied with the pics. I really like your style. Those tips are outstanding. I'd love to learn how to do that with boo flooring, the big box store has it on sale right now.
Jeff
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How you do that???? frickin sweeettt!!! build along,,, pleaseee!! I love it JEFF W
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Thanks again, gents. Any feedback is appreciated whether it be positive or constructive.
Jeff W, I don't know about a build-along. I'm pretty lazy and disorganized when it comes to keeping records and taking pics. I usually have a few projects on the go at once and have a hard enough time staying focused as it is :D
n2Jeff, It wouldn't hurt to pick up a box ;) There really isn't much to building with the stuff. How heavy or light you go depends on the wood you're backing with it and the cross-section. 1/8 - maybe a little thicker - is about right for D-sections made from Cherry, Ash, hickory etc. 3/16 - 1/4 seems to work well with woods like Canary, Tigerwood or Padauk. I've used it to back lots of my R/Ds as well, but it's pretty finicky on short limbs if the draw goes over 45#. It tears if it's too light and overwhelms as it approaches 50% of the limb's thickness.
As a tempered belly lam, it has incredible memory as long as you leave a little char and get full penetration with the heat. Working fast and hot seems to be the ticket, but not too hot lest you burn up the glue holding the strips together. I use a hotplate with the piece worked about an inch away from the element. Side-to-side motions gives an even heat to the section you're working. Once it starts to smoke it's time to move to the next section. It does tend to go concave toward the heat source when it's tempered on a form. I try to balance penetration with exposure time to minimize that.
I've found the Trillium brand to be the best/most consistant in terms of lam-orientation, quality of glue used to bond the lams, and thickness of the top layer which is always between 1/4 and 5/16. The middle and bottom layers are almost useless so there's a bit of waste. Trillium packs each box with 2, 3, 4, and 6 foot lengths...perfect.
As to working it, it doesn't like scrapers. Scraping the back risks chunking out nodes and it's quite delicate after it's been tempered. Light pressure isn't bad though. It'll also give up a lot of weight real fast as a belly lam. For stock removal I use a piece of 2x4 with 3x21 sanding belts slipped onto it for most of the removal. Cut a short piece slightly over-sized and radius the edges on the ends until the belt slips onto it but still snug enough that it won't spin on the block. I pre-taper the belly lams before tempering and start with a little more than 50% of the limbs' thickness so that by the time the char is blending with the inner fibers it's properly proportioned, bending nicely and hitting weight early.
The strips are usually oriented on edge but you gotta watch out for odd orientations like this; lll-lll. Usually not a problem if the odd one is in the middle of the lam but sometimes it will give trouble if it's on the outside of a limb that takes a sudden taper.
Anyway, I hope some of the info is useful. It might save you a bunch of grief leastwise.
Thanks again, every one for your comments. Much appreciated,
Bruce
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Excellent bows, those are really something.