Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: tankerjohn on August 20, 2016, 09:58:19 am
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Hello primitive archers! I new here, but this seemed like the best place to ask a question about improving bow performance. I have a 77" tall hazel selfbow I've been shooting for about six months. Its supposed to be 40#, but it doesn't feel like its pulling that much to me although I haven't measured it on a scale. The performance of the bow seems extremely slow, even for a selfbow. With a 29" arrow and shooting three-under, my point on is barely 20 yards. Switching to split finger bumps the point on to 30 yards, but still with a slow, high arch. I realize that a selfbow is never going to be a speed demon or even match my old glass-backed Bear, but it needs some spicing up. I should add that I didn't make the bow and don't have any practical experience with tillering. I've watched a few youtube videos on bow making and that's about it.
Anyway, I'm thinking of doing one or more of the following to juice it a bit:
- change out the string to a fast flight with padded loops (the current string is very stretchy and I'm sure changing it would be a big help)
- toasting the belly with a heat gun
- moving the string nocks in an inch or so to decrease the length of the bow
So my question for y'all who actually make bows and know what you're doing, what are the pitfalls associated with doing any of the above and would toasting the belly and/or cutting in new string nocks screw up the tiller?
BTW, I haven't yet talked to the bowyer who made the bow and I'm not sure if I should. I don't want it come across like "your bow sucks" and shipping it back to him to work on would be prohibitively expensive anyway.
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A 77", 40# bow does suck! First it is way too long. Your bow is having to carry a lot of physical weight at that length and low draw weight. At this point the string material doesn't matter.
Will you post pics of your bow; braced, unbraced and full draw if possible. It is hard to make a judgement without a pic of the bow.
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If it were my bow, I would consider all of those things. The string is a good start with no down side, and will help a bit. The other 2, tempering and piking (shortening) the bow bring with them some risks. The primary risk is totally ruining the bow. I would accept that as I have a room full of bows. Trashing an under performer in hopes of improving it....I have done. I don't have any experience with Hazel but I know others have heat tempered it, and my guess is, it would firm it up to some degree. You again run the risk of doing something wrong since you have no experience, but it's pretty simple and you can be walked thru it here. Piking the bow, ditto. 77 inches is long, really long, so losing a few inches should be doable as long as your draw length is not 32 inches. Again, folks can walk you thru it, just be prepared for the result to be less than you have now. If that is acceptable, get 'er done.
I just read Pat B's answer, and just to clarify, we are in agreement. The string wont make a big difference, but it wont hurt anything either.
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Yes,pictures would surely help.
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Thanks guys. Here's a few happy snaps. To be fair to the bowyer, he gave me basically what I asked for. I wanted an English longbow, but can't afford yew. I thought that one of the other woods commonly used in the middle ages would be more "authentic" than a laminated bow. I'm learning that its not really that simple.
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sorry for the sideways pictures. I can't seem to fix it.
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Here you go.
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Thanks! How'd you do that? More important, what do you think of the bow? Is it hopeless?
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I have Gimp which is a picture editor. Makes it easy to to get these pictures right. Free download.
Looks like the bottom limb may have a bit of a kink in it just outside the handle. Am I right, and did it develop over time or was it that way from the get go?
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Looks like a few of the bows Ive made from maple. Bottom limbs looks weak.
I would just start from scratch and use it as a baseline example. I never follow my own advice.
Doesn't look hopeless, just might be a bunch of work, and might end up with set or crysals.
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The bow does not look very stressed.i think it could be spruced up easily,just depends what style your willing to do?what draw weight you want and if your willing to break from the elb design
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Wow, thanks for all the feedback!
@slimbob - I'll have to check out Gimp. Thanks. I believe that the lower limb has always had that kink, but I haven't been paying close attention.
@tree ninja - starting over isn't really an option right now. I just want to make this thing shoot as well as it can.
@bushboy - glad to hear you think it can spruced up. What do you recommend? I've given up on arbitrary adherence to "elb" design. Its hard to tell from the pics, but it doesn't have an elb profile anyway, the back is rounded and the belly is flat. For draw weight, I was hoping for 40#, but could go up to 50# and shoot it pretty comfortably.
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My guess is you will get all kinds of advice, and who knows which is best. You have to make the call. I would, if it were mine, I would try and fix it as I have no use for a 77 inch 40 lb bow without any zip to it. Again, if it were to break or breakdown on me, I've got others so no big woop (whup, whoop, wup??). If the bottom limb has been getting weaker over time, and that is not unusual, then it may just keep getting worse no matter what you do short of radical surgery. I would....
1. Pike it. Make it shorter. Maybe 74 inches nock to nock. (ask for suggestions on length as that is just my thoughts on it).
2. Heat temper taking the kink out.
3. Retiller and see what I got.
Your going to be increasing the stress on this bow at a shorter length. Tempering will add to that as well. It will pick up some weight, it just may not keep all or any of it.
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Thanks SLIMBOB - you rock! A couple questions:
1. When piking, if I take an inch and a half off each tip, should I taper the tips like they are now, or leave them thicker?
2. When you say heat tempering to take the kink out, do you mean heating just the lower limb?
3. Tillering scares me a bit because I don't have a tree and have never done it before. I guess this is as good a project as any to learn. I've heard of people making cheap tillering trees from Home Depot wood. Is that a viable course of action for a new guy? Do you have a preference for a rasp or drawknife for scraping the wood?
I don't mind doing my own research, but if you had any links handy to useful websites, forum threads, youtube videos, etc, that would be extremely helpful.
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I saw a movie one time where a guy who had never flown a plane before was able to land a jumbo jet by following the instructions from the dude in the control tower. Turns out the guy in the control tower was a total nut case. Off his bonkers. But they did get the plane down and he won the pretty girl in the end. Funniest dang show I ever saw. But, back on point...
1. Taper the width. Shouldn't take much.
2. Take a heat gun and toast the belly only of the bow. I would put it on some type of makeshift form to get a straight profile when finished. (So take it a bit past dead level. It will hold that shape once it has cooled).
3. Bubby said "There is no room for fear in bow making". A tree is helpful, but you can get by without one. Knife, straight edge and a sanding block.
If you decide to do this, specifics can follow. You will find out that the funnest part is making them.
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It's just plain and simply way too long for the light draw weight to give any real performance. If it were mine id cut it down to 68 inches and retiller.
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Wow that is a tall drink of water , my thoughts are maybe the original bowyer saw some thing in the wood that caused him to make it long and light weight that can't be seen in the pics , every time I made a bow that under performed but was in good tiller I just left it a lone and applied improvements to the next one but that's just me , if your looking to gain some bow knowledge TBB1 would be a good source for you ,You can get a e- copy on Kindle or Nook or in hard copy form welcome & Good luck !
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First off, welcome to PA!
I have my own thoughts about this bow and how to go about fixing it. But I have a couple of questions for you first.
Have you contacted the Bowyer that made you the bow? I know you said you didn't want him to think the bow sucks. But you probably payed good money for it.
Are you sure you are holding the bow with the correct limb in the up position?
IIf I were to have made you this bow and you were to call me and send a picture of that full draw I would insist on fixing it for you or replacing the bow all together.
What is happening is that the upper limb (in the pics) has a fairly smooth arch and the bottom limb is only bending in about a 10 inch section just below the handle.
That is making the bow week and unstable and harder to shoot.
IIf I had to guess, your not consistent in hitting your mark and it almost jumps out of your hand when you release.
II would suggest contacting your Bowyer and if he doesn't want to fix it for you then proceed with the DIY repair.
This group has some of the best Bowyer's in the world and would be willing to help walk you through fixing her up.
Be careful though, this stuff is addictive, you may be building your own bow before you know it.
Patrick
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looks like you might not be pulling it to full draw,,
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Real long lightbows can be a bear to make. As soon as the limbs start bending it seems like you hit your target draw weight and haven't even finished tillering yet. If the bow is at least 1 1/4 wide I would cut it down to about 68" and retlller as suggested above. You have lots of limb that is not bending right now. A good heat treat might also help.
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I thought of making such a light long bow but with a 33" draw, similar to warbow draw, wonder how it'd perform..
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First, you need to decide if you wanna be a bowyer or not, because in all honesty, piking, and heat tempering should be paired with careful retiller ing of any bow.
Regarding the bow itself. The bow is not terrible, but the tiller does not look spectacular, bottom limb is weak slightly and not tillered perfectly IMO. The bow is clearly too long for 29" draw and/or 40#.
Regarding the archer. You are not hitting 29" I suspect. Put a clothespin on your arrow shaft, and draw the bow using the back of the bow to pull the clothespin as you draw, then let down, and measure the position of the clothespin. This will tell you how far you are drawing. Or get a friend to measure while you draw, or just to mark your arrow while you draw.
If it were my bow I would: pike the bow to 68" ish. Narrow tips. Retiller as necessary. Then heat temper. Then check tiller and fine tune as needed. But I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that all of that is an easy slam dunk for a first timer.
I might consider seeing if the bowyer would tune it up for you before considering a drastic series of moves like that.
Be nice and he won't take it as an attack on his work.
Just my .02
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Wow, thanks guys. Lots of great info. I can see this is going to be a bigger project than I thought. Really it seems to me the biggest problem I have is unrealistic expectations for a bow like this. I hadn't ever thought it being too tall for the draw weight or that the reason real ELBs were six feet long is because they pulled north of 100#. Like I said, the bowyer pretty much gave me what I asked for; I suspect now that if I had asked for the best shooting stick of hazel wood, this isn't what he would have given me. I might drop him a line, but really the shipping would cost more than the bows worth so I don't think sending it back makes much sense at this point. I'm gonna check out that Bowyer's Bible and then go from there. Piking and tempering sounds like the best way to go.
BTW, I don't think I was very clear. The arrows I was shooting were 29"; my draw is 28". I had my son measure me with a yardstick. I'm going to try that clothes pin trick, though. That's a great idea.
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There you go. Broad range of ideas on the subject. Now you just need to decide which coarse of action you will take. What you are talking about doing is pretty easy for someone with a bit of experience, but you will be flying a bit blind. Knowledge is power, and all that you need to know to do this can be found on this forum. Lots of folks can offer guidance and suggestions so keep us posted. Good luck!
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Always lots to learn. There are a bunch of great people on here to learn from to. I wish I lived close buy one of these guys. If you have traditional archer clubs around check and see if any make their own bows? I have yet to meet someone who likes to do something that will not talk about it. If no clubs around then here is your place! I live in Paragould Arkansas no one around me does this that I know of so far. That my friend is why I read and learn from these fine people.
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Although it is very long and not tillered correctly. It IS possible to make a 40# hazel bow at 77 inch long that performs well. The way to do it is to have a very elliptical tiller. If your bowyer doesn't know that then I wouldn't be going back to him. Correct tiller shape for width profile and bow length are absolutely key to making a good bow and are pretty simple concepts.
I agree with what Ben has said don't expect this to be a 'quick' fix with no issues. If you had an experienced bowyer on hand to help you then it isn't difficult but.....ask lots of questions and make sure you KNOW what you are doing before doing it!
Oh and by the way a well made wooden bow can perform as well as any production glass bow. Glass will only out perform wood when you start going 'extreme' with them and no production bow is built like that! I know because I make both kinds and have done lots of testing with them. Do not accept poor performance of a wooden bow simply because it is only wood....that is just an excuse for less than perfect work on the part of the bowyer ;)
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Good advice given.what wood working tools do you have?do you have a heat gun?
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I do have a heat gun, plus a small draw knife, a couple rasps, and power elliptical sander. I would so love to get into building my own bows, its just that between job, family, work around the house, etc, I prefer to spend my limited archery time shooting. I'm sure a few of you can relate. I think I'm going to shelve this project for now until I read a little more and scour the threads here. I do really like how this bow looks, and I think its worth fixing up right.
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Although it is very long and not tillered correctly. It IS possible to make a 40# hazel bow at 77 inch long that performs well. The way to do it is to have a very elliptical tiller. If your bowyer doesn't know that then I wouldn't be going back to him. Correct tiller shape for width profile and bow length are absolutely key to making a good bow and are pretty simple concepts.
I agree with what Ben has said don't expect this to be a 'quick' fix with no issues. If you had an experienced bowyer on hand to help you then it isn't difficult but.....ask lots of questions and make sure you KNOW what you are doing before doing it!
Oh and by the way a well made wooden bow can perform as well as any production glass bow. Glass will only out perform wood when you start going 'extreme' with them and no production bow is built like that! I know because I make both kinds and have done lots of testing with them. Do not accept poor performance of a wooden bow simply because it is only wood....that is just an excuse for less than perfect work on the part of the bowyer ;)
Oh, I have no doubts a wood selfbow can equal a glassed bow in performance. I would guess, though, that such a bow would either be a flatbow design or made of one of the high-quality bow woods like yew or osage, or both. Am I wrong?
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Years ago I had to make about 20 english longbows that looked like the real thing but only drew about 40#. Most woods were too heavy for this so I used white cedar and the bows shot great. An english longbow is kind of unique because it has to have certain dimensions in the cross section. A very dense wood might just be too heavy for the length, elyptical tillering can usually make up for the wood density issue but sometimes you just need a lighter wood. Most woods perform about the same if they don't take set.
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I would just string the bow and tie the string down at the tips with another string, making it shorter, until you like the draw weight. I would make the working string as short as 68 inches.
If it shoots better that way, all you need is a scraper. Just scrape where it does not appear to bend enough. Do that with the bow stringed. I particularly like the way done in a video from Rudder Bows Archery. You can find it on YouTube.
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What weight arrows are you shooting? If they are way too heavy, that could contribute. If you aren't shooting the proper arrows now, going lighter could help a little. It won't fix the bow's sluggishness, but could add a little bit of zip.
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I would just string the bow and tie the string down at the tips with another string, making it shorter, until you like the draw weight. I would make the working string as short as 68 inches.
If it shoots better that way, all you need is a scraper. Just scrape where it does not appear to bend enough. Do that with the bow stringed. I particularly like the way done in a video from Rudder Bows Archery. You can find it on YouTube.
I wouldn't.......
The tips will become far too stiff and overstrain further the already overstrained inner limbs. That fella at Rudder Bows doesn't know a huge amount from the videos I've watched. No disrespect - everybody has to learn. Be very careful of what advice is given in these videos on youtube I've seen so much nonsense on there that it makes me cry! Remember a little knowledge is dangerous ;)
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Tanker I feel your no time thing but it can be done a couple hours a week I usaly get up at 2:00 am on Sunday & work for a couple hours before my family even gets out of bed then go to the range , I am a little obsessive compulsive type( not to many of those around here lol) but I would rather do that then shoot a bow that I wasn't happy with I have made 3 awsome hunnting bows that way the winter most people have more time also , not trying to discourge you from your repair just think you could make a better bow for your self & pointing out your not alone with no time.
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In this forum there are too many levers of expertise intermingled in one thread. Many opinions of experts are simply too confusing for the beginners. I'm in the school of "keep it simple at all costs." Otherwise I would be making compound bows with modern materials. If just scraping on a stave is too simple for you, you might as well try to learn how to cook perfect boiled rice in several years. After all we are just trying to make a stick to bend evenly.
As for tips, they should be cut of course once you decide on the better length for the bow.
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Wow, you guys are awesome! I totally appreciate the inspiration and willingness to help me out.
Little Ben, you're right - the clothespin says my draw is 27.5", not 28" like I thought. Maybe I'm bending my elbow more than last time I measured. Loope, you're on to something. I had thought about my arrows. The ones I'm using now are poplar and probably on the heavy side. I haven't weighted them; I don't have a grain scale.
I measured the cross section of the bow - its a 1 3/8" x 13/16". The crosssection is rectangular, with the belly dead flat and the back slightly rounded. So not a classic "D" section ELB. But the bowyer said it needed a flat belly since hazel is weak in compression. In the picture, I'm holding it the way it was sent to me, with the handle just below center so the arrow pass is right at the center. Based on what you guys are telling me that the weaker limb should be on top, I'm tempted to flip it over and try to shoot it that way just to see what the difference would be. But its still too long, right? And it still has a funky kink in the limb (which, BTW, has about an inch or so of set with the bow unstrung - hadn't really noticed before)
Okay, what do I need to fix this thing? Where do I start?
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Hey John. Last I read I figured you had decided not to mess with it. Change of heart?
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Start by clamping the string an inch at a time down to the limb. Weigh the bow every inch and take a pic every inch. Also measure set. The set should be measured from where you tie your string at. You dont want lots of set. Every inch you do, take a pic, wait for replies on how it looks. You will need to retiller it at a certain point as you shorten it. The weight will go up about 3 pounds every inch you shorten it if i recall.
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After looking at your photos again, I think your bow is developing a hinge in the lower limb about 1/5 below the handle. So far the set does not appear in the side profile of unstringed bow. If you can full much more than 40 pounds, you should stop using the bow. I would heat treat the problem section and duct tape it up and wait for a couple of day while studying your options. Shortening the bow as is would make the problem worse. I'm no expert at tillering. I hope some experts chime in.
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Yeah, I'm going to give it a shot, but slowly and try to work on it when I can. So I got ahold of the bowyer and he says the bow didn't have the kink in it when he sent it. He thought maybe it developed the kink when I string it. That could be the case. My stringer is too short for the bow, so I was stringing it step-through method, trying to be careful. Maybe not careful enough. So is the first order of business straightening out that kink? Can someone one walk me through or link a thread on how I should heat treat it. As I said, I do have a heat gun.
BTW, any of y'all near Washington DC?
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Are you going to shorten it up? If so I would do that first before heat treating. Have you decided on the length you want. Most folks the other day said 68 inches. I too think that's about right, but I believe you should start small. Take an inch and a half off each limb and see what that does. If you need more you can always cut a bit more off, but you cant add it back on.
Why don't you send Del the cat a pm and see what he suggests. He's an ELB guy and has experience with Hazel.