Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Mo_coon-catcher on July 30, 2016, 12:30:44 pm
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Im got a request from a guy to build a 90* static recurve from a good friend of my uncle. Around that request he left the playing field open on what to do with it. So I'm going for black locust with a small stiff handle. I havnt done a static recurve in a while or a proper build along, so why not now.
I started with a black locust stave around 62" long and about 2.5" wide. A little short for my plans, but I'll see if I can make it work. The goal is 50-55# at 28".
I don't have to chase but one ring to get where I wanted. To make the bow even better I decided to go with a sapwood back. So far this morning I've got a ring chased with a profile layout doodled on, and roughed out into a blank. For dimensuons I ended up going with 4" handle, 2" fades, and 27" limbs from fade to tip. So to be able to get the draw length I need I made the limbs 1 7/8" wide which is as wide as the stave allowed me to go. Tapering to 1 5/8 midlimb the. Down to 5/8 tips. The plan is to deflex the fades a bit to reduce some strain once o have the hooks bent. As a way to help make up for the short limbs. I'd prefer if the limbs were longer. But I don't mind a challenge. If it turned out that I need to I can always thin the handle and make it flex a bit.
I want to get it to brace before I do any of the bending so it'll be easier to make the wood move.
Kyle
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And a couple more pictures of what I've got done so far this morning.
Kyle
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Why do you think leaving a sapwood back would make it better? Jawge
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More just a cosmetic thing. I love the look of black locust sapwood on a bow. I have no idea of whether or not it's actually better or worse than heartwood in performance.
Kyle
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Here's a few more of where I'm finishing up for the day. It's floor tillered good enough to long string it with the corners rounded. The next day I work on it I'll be cutting temporary nocks and getting a long string on it. Right now the blank is still a bit green so I'll be taking my time over the next few weeks so it can dry out better. I'm going to seal the back with some cheap wood glue to keep it from cracking too bad while I put it in my truck on hot days to help it dry out quicker.
Kyle
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I don't get it, where is sapwood?
My pyramid black locust bow blew near 28" on tiller few days ago. I removed sapwood and wood underneath had some weird discoloration spots and on one of those it had broken (on back). I'll start again with better staves I have.
Sapwood here looks and feels really bad, impossible to leave it on and expect bow to survive.
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It should be in the last ring of sapwood/ first of heart wood area. I might have gone a bit under that. Though I only took one ring layer away from under the bark. Unless I had already removed a layer or two of sapwood and forgot about it when I had removed the bark. The last couple I've done like this i couldn't tell it was sapwood backed until I put some finish on it when there was a very distinct color difference.
Kyle
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Lookin great MoCoon....this should be fun to follow. You used a drawknife for a lot of your wood removal I assume?
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Yup. I used the draw knife for almost all the wood removal. I even used it to get a rough bend going. I used the scraper to cleanup and smooth out the cuts. I'll probably be swapping over to just the scraper for the rest of the work now.
Kyle
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I figured...those were some nice looking shavings. I'm not as proficient with mine. I can chase a ring..but that's about it!
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Do put the blade bevel toward the wood or toward you Ajooter? I find I have better control with the bevel toward the wood. It changes the angle you have to hold to get a cut, but it tends to not dig in as much. If I need to remove a larger section of wood I'll flip it around and let it dig in some. It's like any thing else though, practice makes perfect(or at least better).
I'm in the middle of a BL build myself at the moment. Your's is looking good so far. Just be careful with the force dry, I had one check on me right down the center of the handle and about 4 inches up both limbs. Totally my fault though, I knew it was too early to start on it, but was exited to work a nice clean stave. Lesson learned.
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I'm a BL fan but never left a sap wood ring on. I'm gonna follow along I might try it on my next BL bow
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I'll be watching this one. I know you can do it!
Patrick
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While you are letting that stave dry.....
Take a few photos of your Vice and its set-up.
And, Show us how you use it.
Thanks
David
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That's the Kyle I know . . . stave to floor tillered in a day! ;)
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That's the Kyle I know . . . stave to floor tillered in a day! ;)
Yep, and he will have it shooting tomorrow and the finish done in a day or two.
Patrick
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I can see what I can do about getting some pictures of my setup. It's pretty simple really. It was initially setup to hold a bench use in the bed of my truck at about chest level for while I was at school. I took it out and was too lazy to put it back in the truck. So Ive been working with it on the ground. It works fine but your on your knees using them to hold the vise mount in place while hogging away.
I was hoping the wood was a bit more dry so I could've got it braced up, but I was a little worried about bracing it as green as it is. I have about 2.5-3 hours into it at this point. So it's going pretty quick, but progress is going to slow down a bit while I wait for it to dry and get the bending done. It's probable I couldVe had it shooting that day if I started with some dry wood. But you cant crank out all of them in a day.
I'm thinking about deflexing at the fades to get the hooks just below the handle then reflexing midlimb to get the tips about an inch above the handle. Hopefully after all that the tips will end up level with the back of the handle. Then once the curving is done I'll work on lining up everything.
Kyle
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My fastest ever bows were r/d recurves from b.locust. Do it you won't be disappointed!
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My fastest ever bows were r/d recurves from b.locust. Do it you won't be disappointed!
Not the Turkish bows? :P
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I'm finally getting back to it after giving the bow a good spell to dry out inside. It dropped about 10 grams of moisture. And classes starting back up finally has eaten up a bit of time, but I gave this weekend free to get a little work done. The plan today is to get it worked down to a reasonable thickness by getting it beaced up and worked back to about 12" draw. Then I'll start with all the bendi work IThe some pics at every step. If there are any pictures in particular anyone wants to see or better description of what I'm doing, let me know. The first two pictures are of my portable vise set up. It's intended to fit in the bed of my truck and get the code up to about diaphragm level. The last is today's pic of my fat girl about to shed and hopefully giver another now backing thatight be used on this one if it comes off in one piece. She's about 36" long and almost as thick as a 16oz bottle of TB3 at the moment.
Kyle
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Your able to use shed skins as backing? What kind of glue do you use?
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I did it for the first time on this years trade bow, I moistens the skin by putting in in a plastic tote with damp paper towels, split the back from belly side. I glued it on with TB3, it worked pretty good and smoothly. I kept my finger wet while I pushed out the excess glue. Even for just a shed those Python skins are pretty tough when moist. When dry you could barely tell the pattern the snake had before, but it did add a neat looking scale patern since the scale pockets act like holders for little glue bubbles giving a texture and scale appearance
Kyle
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I got it braced up to 6" to the back and pulled back to about 10". Which right now it's pulling about 30# at 10#. So close enough to start doing some bending. I've gotta thin down the tips a bit so they can be smoothly bent into shape. The tiller might not be perfect at the moment, but I figure that between bending and heat treating it will shift a bit. So for now close enough, I can correct it later.
Kyle
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Didn't the tb glue leave a yellow hue underneath though? Do you have a pic of the back of your trade bow I do that remember seeing it?
Sorry if I'm hijacking buddy! 8)
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It's not a problem at all. I don't have a picture in my phone any more. I ran out of space and had to clear a bunch of stuff. It did leave a little bit of a yellow hue, but it was on black licust so it had a slight tinge of yellow in the tan anyway. As log as this one decides to hold up until the end, I'll back it with some sheds to give a good look at how I did it.
I got one hook bent. The bow slipped a bit when I cranked down the first clamp, so it's a bit less than the 85-90* I was hoping for, but still more than enough to make a recurve. It made a decently smooth bend and only tried to crack and buckle in one spot. But a clamp and a little more heat around it and everything worked out fine. The crack went maybe 1/16" deep. I steamed it using a veggie oil, wet rag, foil, and a heat gun. After steaming it for a while I slapped it on the jig and kept the heat gun on it for extra heat to get it to bend around. I've done it this way a couple of times and it seems to work well.
Kyle
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look'n good! my kind of bends
DBar
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Just removed the clamps, I think this is an acceptable amount of springback.
Kyle
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that looks great,, :)
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What if you used just heat gun? What would be procedure and could you do it?
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I'm sure it can be done with just a heat gun on it's own if you can let the heat sink through the wood without burning it. For me it's more safe to use steam on a tight radius like that. The furthest I've been able to take black locust with just dry heat was about 45* before it starts to crack. I'm not all that patient though to allow the heat to properly sink in. With the foil and wet rag I can put the heat gun apat right in the foil and get that water steaming in just a few moments.
I did get a bitore bending done before it turned dark on me. The other hook cake out almost the same as the first. It did crack a bit more than the first one, but nothing that can't be cleaned up to work fine. Then I got some deflex heated in, I havnt pulled the clamp off yet to see what it held. It did takes some finagling to get an even deflex on both limbs, one was being a bit more stuff than the other, is I put a leather shim under the softer limb by the handle, so that as I cranked down the clamp the bow would rotate a bit and force the more stiff limb to bend more and the weaker limb to stop bending.i got then close enough to even to make me happy. But today's goal is to reflex the midlimbs back to bring the tips ahead of the handle again, essentially back to where they were. That way it will essentially be a reflex/deflex with hooks at the tips. No idea if the reflex deflex with help or hurt, but it sure will make a neat looking recurve.
Kyle
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Looking sweet, Kyle.
Talk about a "portable" work shop ;)
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It's a bit floppy but awesomely portable.
Most of the deflex held when I popped the clamp off. About 1/2" pulled out putting the tips 1/4" infront of the handle. I got it clamped in the form for reflexing, nothing too extreme but it'll put the tips a solid inch infront of the handle. I'm going to heat treat this in place and hope it all holds. Then it's time to align the hooks.
Kyle
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Here it is after pulling it off the form. It held about 1" of total reflex after all the bending. I feel like that's a decent enough place to start. It has a light reflex deflex profile before hitting the hooks. And as for alignment I feel like one hook is pretty good, the other needs an alignment job. It looks like a simple heat and twist should pull it over. Once I get the hooks straightened out I'll put some overlays one so that I can make use of the full length of the limbs and have the go over the top of the limb.
Kyle
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Shaping up and looking good Kyle. Looking forward to seeing more.
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It looks like the first go at alignment was pretty good. Looks straight enough to me to start cleaning up and smoothig out everything with some sanding, then it's time to put on a string. I'll do the micro alignments as I go and the wood tells me what it need for it to bend. I did a little bending on the floor, and it's very stiff still, I think there is a lot of scraping to do to get it down to weight.
Kyle
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So what is your procedure? You wrap foil, put it on steaming and then while its hot you bend it on jig and while bending you take heat gun to it to make heat constant or did I got something wrong?
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You've pretty much got it. I have everything ready to go while steaming, so as soon as it's hot enough I quickly slip the foil and rag off, slap the bow on the jig and start bending giving supplementary heat to keep it hot enough to keep moving. I need to make my recurring jig like I saw some on here have. Where they have a metal strap bolted to the form tht you slide the tip on te bow into and start cranking the bow around the curve instead of fighting to get that first clamp on before everything cools.
Kyle
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Cool...Sorry I did'nt chime in earlier but I was wondering when putting your deflex in did you do one side at a time with the heat gun?Looks pretty good so far for ya.
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Do you have some basic dimensions for the recurve jig? I have no luck finding those on the net, or even in TBB2
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When I reflexed I did both at once. I put a little tension on the limbs with the clamp then started heating both as evenly as I could by heating till the limb was hot to the touch then jump to the other limb to let the heat sink in. The. I'd incrementally crank down the clamp and heat some more and continued these two steps until I have the deflex I want. If one limb wants to bend easier than the other I add shims under the side that wants to drop quicker. This causes the bow to rotate and eventually even out the limbs.
For the jig, I didn't use any specific pattern or dimensions. I decided on what sort of radius I wanted and eyeballed a sketch into the 2x4. Once it looked good I bandsawed it out. I can get you measurements of your like.
Kyle
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A quart paint can radius is a good start for statics. Not stepping on your toes, Kyle.
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Nice looking hooks Kyle
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I got a bit more done last night. I cleaned up the bow a bit; sanded the edges smooth, cleaned up the cracks from bending with some super glue to fill them up and rasped them smooth, cleaned up the back a bit, and took a couple of scrapes off the belly to start dropping the weight a bit before I started making it bend again. I should have 3 successive posts to get all the pictures I took on here, and Ill describe what I did in each set.
The first picture shows my normal method of tillering using the reflection in the back glass of my truck and how loose the initial loose string is to get everything moving for the first time since all the bending. I just got the tree workable on the bow before this one, which was a totally different weight class than this one. So I stuck with my old method to get a feel for how the wood wanted to act and to be able to feel for any twisting or torquing motions while the limbs started to move. The first thing I noticed was that the bow that was pulling 30# at 10" was bow rediculously heavy. It took some serious effort to just make te limbs move. But I sid heat treat upping the weight, and essentially shortened the limbs by recurring, without taking a tape to it I would say the recurves shortened the limbs for the early draw stage by about 3-4" from what they were. So I took a couple of scrapings off each limb to start dropping the weight a bit. Before continuing with the mirror until I felt it had dropped to a reasonable weight to start taking a scale to it.
This set of pictures showed the limbs marked with pencil lead where I want to scrape, which for now I'm avoiding any scraping in the fade area to keep them under stressed until I go to get the last couple inches of draw out of it.
The next picture shows the relative angle I hold the scraper to te bow belly to help reduce any wash boarding, I aim to keep it at about a 45* angle to the bow and will alternate it back and forth so the scraper is always taking wood at different angles. I also pushe the scraper from the tip into the handle, instead of pulling from handle to tip. This seems to help reduce or eliminate the little ledge that forms when the edge of the scraper goes through the softer early wood. Also by pushing I can put some serious weight into the scraper and take some heavy curls if I have a lot of wood to remove.
In the last picture in feeling out for any thick or thin spots in the limb. I stopped for the picture in a thick spot. When I come to these while scraping I'll take a little more wood from these areas to help it alowt catch up to the rest of the limb. It might take a couple of scraping sessions for me to totally remove the thick spots. If I find a thjnk spot I'll mark it about so I won't touch there until it's evened out.
Kyle
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This next series is where I started to take it to the tree and scale. Which is the second time I've used a tree for tillering and will say that I'm getting to like them. The first bow I used a tree with was a heavy piece of osage I started a t MoJam, and just got to ahooting this last weekend, but that'll be in a post of its own knce I get done wth some touch ups.
The first pic shows one of the big benefits of using a bowyers loop for tillering. The hooks weren't perfectly straight inline with the handle and limbs, so I skewed the string over the the side it needed to be on the help the strjng stay put while I made the wood bend. The first couple of pictures are of the bows first time on the tree after a righ weight dropping on the mirror. The first is with the long string and just enough weigh put on to straighten everything out. The second is of me putting my goal weight of 50# into it. Which it's really not moving all that much. So I took scrapings off the limbs in sets of twos. Where I mark up the entire under side of the limbs and scrape the pencil off then do it again before going to the other side. The next picture is after about 4 of those sessions. It still didn't drop any serious weight, but enough that I was comfortable putting a low brace on it. The limbs weren't quite perfectly balanced but the bends looked pretty decent to me. Which helps a bunch by pre tillering while the limbs are still straight.
Kyle
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This last series of what I did last night is when I took it to a low brace of about 3.5" from string to back. Once braced you can see hooks are in line with each other, but not quite inline with the rest of it, so they skew to one side. But it's good enough for the string to stay put for some short draws where the string doesn't pull off the hooks yet. I'll be correcting that the next time I work on it. In addition to fully cleaning and removing the bending cracks and reinforcing with a belly strip of something, I'm not sure what yet but I'm leaning towards horn.
The last picture is me pulling it back to 50# right after bracing o see where everything is lining up and the even ness of the limbs. The left limb is a bit strong, so I'll be taking a set of scrapings from that limb o even them out before continuing further. Once I get it pulled back to about 22" of the tree I'll swap over to tillering by hand in the truck mirror again to get everthing evened out in hand.
Any input is welcome, whether questions, comments, or suggestions on how I'm going about
everything.
Kyle
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That so nice an =d is looking really good. Jawge
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Yep, looking real nice
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Well I got a bunch of the tillering done today. I knew it's was still quite a bit over weight, so I took a couple sets if scrapes from each limb and beaded it up at a full brace. So I worked on evening out the limbs. Once they were even I put it on the tree and pulled it back to 50# which was at about 20". What I didn't realize until I pulled it back and it took me a minute to realize I had a hing starting mid too limb. It wasn't too horrid so it took a bit to realize it, but te damage was done and I had the spot fret on me. With the deflex I put in the fades I was trying to avoid working the fades too much too soon and ended up stressing the midlimb. But I cleaned up the hinge and evened up the limbs, I checked the tiller in the tryck window and it looked much better. I put it back on the tree, watching the bend more closely. I had to touch just outside the fades a bit, but it pretty much just pulled straight track to 26" to hit 50#. So after shooting in and cleanup with just shy of 50# at 27". I'm afraid to push the bow any more than this, it's alreay a prety sharp bend and has taken just shy of 1" of set. I got ahold of the guy I'm building it for to see if he would prefer me make the handle bend and push it back to 29". Or if he was happy with a 27" draw. So here it is at full draw on the tree. I wish I wouldve taken more pictures i between first full brace and full draw, but it went pretty quick. And it shoots very smoothly and pretty quick with a 27" draw even with the still heavy built levers.ill keep updating as I get the finish work done. The pictures at at first full brace, full draw, and unbraced.
Kyle
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Man those curves always look sweet.Nice work with very little set I'd say.Lucky you had enough meat to adjust the fret away.Shoot her in a bit and dress her up heh???
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Could it go till 28"?
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It's possible I could take it on back a bit more. If I didn't over stress that one spot I probably would. I did notice that the lower limb, whih is the left in the tree is still a bit stiff. So I could take a couple scrapes and ease it on back a smidge. Though I feel like it'll gain some more set if I pull it back much more. I'm going to shoot it in for a bit and see how it settles in. I've only got about 40 shots through it at the moment so it will probably shift a little. And it feels very smooth in the hand, so the tiller in the hand is probably a little more even than it is on te tree, even though I did try to replicate the same hold points on the handle and string as I was shooting it. I'll have to get an in the hand draw picture.
This bow also has the thinnest limbs of any bow I've made. The thinnest spot, which is where I had e hinge, is only about 1/4-5/16" thick. Yet still pulls 50#. Usually they turn out closer to 3/8" at there thin points.
Kyle
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I was going to mention that about that left limb Mo but figured you took a pic at an angle there so that could skew the look a bit.Must be wide enough to get the limbs that thin.Hope she holds together for ya.
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The limbs are 1 3/4" wide till mid limb then tapering to 3/4" 27" fade to nock.. Once I get it shot in im going to narrow the tips down a bit to about 3/8" at the knocks. I did a bit more looking over of the tiller pictures. It looks like the fades aren't really working much if at all. And it has taken a bit less set than I initially noticed, closer to 1/2-5/8". So I might tweak the tiller a bit and see if I can shoot it into a 28" draw and if it doesn't take any more set see if it wants to go the 29". I intended it to be a 29" draw, might as well see if I can make it happen.
Kyle
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Sorry about the long absence with no updates. Classes started back up and I've got a 2 hour commute each way. And I ran into that typical iPhone issue of memory space being full and can't take any pictures. But I fixed that by deleting phantom pictures. So I missed a step of two, but I've delayed some work until I could take pictures again.
But, I got the horn nocks and brush nocks glued on. I used super glue for the overlays and epoxy mixed with horn dust for the brush nocks. I ahaped the inside curve of the horn with a rasp and scraper to get it as close as I reasonably could and used the epoxy to finish filling the gap. I've got the new slimmer profile for the hooks doodle out. But before I fully rasp then out I'm going to shape out just the nock to see where the string alignment shifts to and redraw as need be. I don't have near the amount of material id like to work with and keep the string centered. But it should be anoigh to be acceptable. What I have drawn out is: 3/8" at the nock, 1/2" at the start of the horn and 5/8" and the rear, then tapering to the full width in 3". I can make it a bit wider but not much, maybe 1/16".
What do you all think, before I hack away? I think it should be fine personally, but I'd like another opinion or two
Kyle
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That's starting to look pretty good bud!
Patrick