Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: dragonman on February 08, 2011, 07:49:36 pm
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Hi everyone, here is my latest bow experiment, maybe its a first? bamboo backed coconut palm, they are both technically grasses so I figured they would be quite compatible... It is 64" ntn. 55#, I glued in 2 1/2" of reflex (perry reflex style...), it returns to 2" immediately after unstringing and goes back to 2 1/4" of reflex by the next day, only took a 1/4" of set ( I'm obssesed with set ;D). It shoots good, on a par with boo backed ipe. Strange material, very heavy and dense but fairly soft to work, almost crumbly texture, difficult to work, hope you like the pics, thanks for looking I tillered the lower limb 1/8" stronger because I noticed a tendency with reflexed bows to take about 1/8" extra set on the lower limb and I would have to keep reversing them to balance them out so we will see what happens!!!
Dave
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very good bow dragonman!! i made one similar, years ago, it was very difficult to keep the tiller right. i overtillered the limbs twice chasing them... yours is beautiful,, excellent work :) :) james
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excellent bow. interesting grain on the palm, almost looks like a tigerwood. tiller looks spot on as well. Beauty job on the hardwood/horn inserts on those arrows. good job.
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one more handle pic
whoops!! dont know why it came twice???
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what is the physical weight of the bow?
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looks real nice. I was down in Cuba recently and wondered if a bow could be made out of the palm trees. Cool bow, nice finishing work too.
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Thanks guys,
Robustus...I just weighed it at 22oz
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Beautiful!!! I love the looks of the grain. Good job!
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WOW, very nicely done.....really classic looking, sir!!! I too like the entire package. Looks like a type of short bodkin for the piles, really nice.
rich
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That's a pretty neat combination. Did you cut the wood from a tree or can you buy it in board form? I'm asking because it grows in South Florida and have never seen boards made from it.
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Cool lookin wood, great job on the tiller.
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Very nice, i like it ! Nice to see something "different"
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I like when bowyers push around different envelopes. You pushed a good one there. Nice!
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Very good Dave. I like when bowyers research new areas of the bow world. Very nice colors and intresting combination. Please keep us posted as to over all performance and durability. Great tiller as well. Congratulations
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Thats an interesting combo. I like bows like this :)
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Well done!
Never heard of that combo being used.
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Good looking bow,very nice work. :)
Pappy
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Thanks very much for the appreciation everyone. ;D
Mullet, I went to a wood yard looking for ipe and I saw coconut boards, they looked very dense and interesting and half the price of ipe so I got one, came from indonesia where apparently they use it for everything like we would use( or use to) use oak, they cut down the trees every 70 years when they stop producing coconuts, so a good renewable resource, so the man told me, buts its not catching on over here and he cant sell it, must be plentyfull in Florida. The hardest best wood is from the outside of the tree and it gets softer towards the middle. Much more friendly dust than ipe!!!
Rich, yes they are some nice steel bodkins made here in the Uk, I can get you some if you want, same price as the field points but cooler( I think)
Keenan, I'll will keep you posted,its shot a few hundred arrows and hasnt changed, but you never know, if you dont here anything then its stable, fingeres crossed
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very nice bow , interesting colors
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I love the figuring in the Coconut...beautiful work and beautiful bow!
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Now that bow sparks my interest. There are so many varieties of palm growing in my area - South Florida. Shoot, I've got coconut palms growing on every street of my neighborhood. Hmmmm.
A very fine bow, one that I surely appreciate. I may have to start hunting for some of the wood. I've seen plenty of those trees removed by tree services over the years...
Well done, Dave!
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That's AWESOME!!! Nice work Dave. I've never seen coconut wood before, makes a beautiful bow!
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Thanks, I'm going to see if I can locate some here.
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Very nice looking and very interesting material.Thanks for showing it. ' Frank
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thanks very much I appeciate the compliments, I estimate the S.G. must be close to 1.0, it is pretty dense, but it is dense darker fibres in a matrix of softer lighter colored material, the denser the more of the dark fibres and the darker it looks overall, many of the boards for sale where considerably lighter
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Very cool. Did you feel that there was any risk of compression fractures because of the texture of the material and do you think it could make a selfbow? Thanks for sharing. Always good to see new materials being used.
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Now that is sharp!
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Very nice bow. That combo is just gorgeous!
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Ryoon, the wood felt very dense and heavy so I wasnt too worried. also I used less than 1/8 of boo. Did some bend tests first and not sure it will make a self bow, tended to explode dangerously before it took set, hope that helps
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just chrono'd this bow, for anyone whose interested. Was a little dissapointed, although I've never been good at shooting through chronos, others always shoot the same bows faster than me. Anyway fastest I could get was an average of 150-150fps, not as fast as I'd hoped
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Plenty fast enough to put some meat in the freezer ;)
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And it's basically grass.
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The bow looks great. Both cosmetically and form wise.
How was it to work? A friend of mine got some red palm and said you have to stabilize it or it will tear. You have any issues like that?
(I can already hear the comments comming about putting a stabilizer on a primitive bow :D)
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Bevan, what do mean by 'stabilise', ? when I first bent it some of the dark fiibres pushed up , after sanding them down they didnt come back
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In some woodworking projects, the subject wood will 'tear' easily. So a stabilizing agent of some kind (like an epoxy or other glue) is used to hold the fibers together and allow the woodworker to cut them without them tearing.
You run into this more in turning projects on a lathe.
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That bow looks great as do the arrows! If you were looking for a tad more speed without changing the tiller, you might try flame tempering the next bow you make like this... Bamboo does some amazingly good things with heat, maybe the Palm will too?
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Cool bow didn't know you could use Coconut. Bookmarked for Feb. Backed BOM contest as well. :)