Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Arrowbuster on February 28, 2016, 08:11:11 pm
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Well I am sure many of you have read my posts of late and many of you have helped me along on my first selfbow build. I had an oh crap moment today. I sanded on the bow a little to day so I could get a coat of tru oil on it to seal. I noticed the spot in picture below. What can I do to fix this? It's on the belly about 15 inches down from tip. I know how it got there, I heated and bent some reflex to late in game. Anybody have any ideas? There is crack on back that is 11/2 inches long but it runs with grain. I superglued that. Same area.
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Those are cryshals my friend, like the Irish guy said to William Wallace, the lord says I'll be fine but your #%!$&
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Those are cryshals my friend, like the Irish guy said to William Wallace, the lord says I'll be fine but your #%!$&
Haha, pretty much... Like Bubbly said, those are chrysals, or compression fractures. The wood is collapsing along those like little fault lines. There's no real repair. Most of us would scrap a bow like that. Some try to take extreme measures to fix them but generally it's better to start a new bow than to put a bunch of work into a bow that you'll never really trust anyway.
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I scraped on it a little in that area took it down less than a 1/16 and took all signs of cracks out. Not worth retiller?
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You can if ya want, my guess is they show up again
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The bow is bending too much there that's why if fretted. By reducing it more will make it fret again and maybe worst.
The only repair I know of would be to add a patch but that's a lot of work and may not work. Since it is your first bow, keep it and study why it happened. It's only a failure if you don't learn from it.
Now, go start another. ;)
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He said he got the crack while adding reflex, he may not need to do anything to it. They are usually harmless but look bad.
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There is quite a few of them badger, on the other hand it will shoot till it fails
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I would trap the back.
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He said he got the crack while adding reflex, he may not need to do anything to it. They are usually harmless but look bad.
I'm with Badger on this one. The only thing I would do extra is fill it with super glue.
Patrick
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a little trick i tried once, cut a piece of horn. i used cow horn, heat it in boiling water to get it to bend. put it between two pieces of wood in a clamp. you want it to shape like the limb is. anyways after it dries, thin it down and glue it to that spot. leave it a inch or two of overhang from both sides. after the glue dries you may want to thin it a tad more with a file, then wrap with sinew real good. that trick worked for me on a locust bow a long time ago.
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I have patched them with some success but like Steve said if you done it adding reflex it may be ok,
I'd Like to see an un strung and full draw picture so maybe we could tell more. I know it's your first and understand, I have been there and would do most anything to try and save one, but now if it is frets, I usually make cooking wood out of them. The ones I have tried to patch were for others that are where you are. :)
Pappy
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Bummer man, I broke my first attempt last night, pretty disheartening haha. Maybe it is salvageable maybe not but either way resolve to salvage your determination and persevere!
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Yes I agree, if I can save her awesome if not its lessons learned. I've got a whole list of things I'm not going to do next time. All part of the learning curve. I was eyeing my next victim last night. Got a stave that's begging for the ole draw knife.
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Here is a pic after I scraped it down with my pocketknife. I tried to heat bend it in a caul just on the other side of the knot in picture. I'm thinking the knot is why the wood done what it did. I'm going to retiller and see what I come up with. Not ready to give up yet. I really didn't go that deep to get cracks out.
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Hoping the best for ya and am curious if it works for ya.Been there too.They are like phantoms that keep returning most times though.
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Those could have been left totally alone. Those aren't compression fractures.
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Pearl, now you tell me. Hopefully I won't lose to much weight. The limb was a little thick there anyway but I think that was because of the knot. It humps up on the back.
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You have to work mightily to make osage fret. I've seen it one or two times in my life. And I've seem some damn nasty tillered osage bows.
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Are those on the belly or the back? The pics look like the back.
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Cracks are in belly.
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How much reflex did you add in that area?
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About 2 inches I'd say in the 15 inch span.
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You could add a rawhide patch or do a sinew wrap.
Jawge
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Well I blended in what I scraped off. Didn't have to do any additional tillering. Shot her 30-40 times and shot pretty good. No cracks showed back up so I tru oiled back up. Im very hopeful, the bow shoots pretty dang good. I will make a post once I got her complete.
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Just for some perspective, I have successfully patched weak places on the belly and even thinned a limb and added a whole new belly. i hate to give up on a bow that can be saved.
Here are some photos of one I patched. I've been shooting it for around 4 years. It shoots great. 44# at 28".
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Jim that's a pretty cool fix. I will remember that one.
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Sorry if I led you astray. I didn't catch the bit where you said you had reflexed the bow there. If they happened from that then I agree, they aren't a big deal. Good luck and show us the bow when it's done.
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Not a problem Weylin. I appreciate your input.
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I'm sorry about that too i also missed that you reflexed it there
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I've found that if you try and change a bows shape after it has been tillered is a sure fire way to get these sort of cracks. They weren't chrysalis and could have been left completely alone and not harmed a thing. As Badger says they are ugly as hell but they won't fail on you. However once you've got a chrysal - firewood :)
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Now I'm wondering if anyone out there has continued to shoot a bow with compression fractures in the limbs.What happens to it.Not like this bow here but one where the design was not right for it.
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Glad to hear you've got it shooting. I'm curious about the first photo, did you leave the knot high on the belly side originally?
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I've had similar things, mostly on red oak, whenever I tried to use dry heat to make wood bend without enough patience.
Dry heat that is too hot makes the wood brittle, and you can get cracks in the wood that is put under tension during the bending action. Bending wood with dry heat needs to be done slowly and with gentle heat to avoid this.
As said, they don't seem to harm the bow's performance as long as they are merely tension cracks (on the belly) that occurred during bending.
Joachim
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That's a bunch of movement in such a short space. Was there a kink in the limb caused by a knot? I think you were right to try to remove the cracks. I could never trust a bow with those kind of cracks unless they were in a non-working area. If you haven't caused a hinge or lost a bunch of weight removing them then the bow was too thick there and likely not sharing it's load of the work.
Beadman, Bows with compression fractures have inevitably failed on me. I simply retire them or cut them up but I have lots of bows.
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I have repaired several chrysals. Havent had them break yet. Lebhuntfish has a bow that chrysled on him that i repaired months ago. Have to ask him how thats holding up.
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Here is the whole story. I got the bow tillered out and commenced to shoot it in. Bow shot real good. After I unstrung I noticed that I had gained about 11/2 inches of set. Particularly in the area where the knot was. It also had some prop twist that started after knot.Being the rookie I am,I just had to make that better. So I clamped her to a caul I made and commenced to heating. Looking back I may have got her a little hot. It did straighten the limbs up and although there is still set, the tips do not come behind the riser now when unstrung. But it resulted in the cracks pictured in the belly and 1 crack on the back that ran vertical with the grain. I superglued that one. I have definitely learned a bunch of things on this bow and I feel my next one will be much better. So even if she fails I don't think it will be a total failure. The biggest thing I'm learning is that this is a patient persons game and do not rush into anything.
I do want to thank everyone for there input, it's definitely helping me figure this stuff out.
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Yeah, sorry I missed this thread. Here is my takeaway ( because I never stop learning from you guys), and my two cents, because I have destroyed, and fixed, so many bows by reworking them......
"Too late in the game" is actually the perfect time, as far as I'm concerned, to add recurves or reflex, because the thin wood "takes" it better. If you do it too soon the changes often change back as you thin and narrow stuff, but you have to plan ahead.
On the other hand, late-in-the-game change, like adding a recurve, generally require a lot of re-tillering.
Compression fractures and tension fractures caused by heat reflexing are two very different problems.
2" of reflex over 15" of limb is a lot.
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2" over 15" is a walk in the park. It's nothing more than too much or too little heat applied.
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Can you post a picture of the form that you used to add the reflex?
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Here's a Fixalong I did years ago. http://sticknstring.webs.com/fixit.htm
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Clint, here is a picture of the jig I made. I let the end overhang and I'm pretty sure where the jig is flat to end of tip was 16 inches.
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Here's a Fixalong I did years ago. http://sticknstring.webs.com/fixit.htm
Good fix a long
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2" over 15" is a walk in the park. It's nothing more than too much or too little heat applied.
I maybe should have said, "for dry heat". In this case I think it was. But, it is osage.