Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: simk on March 13, 2021, 01:04:04 pm
-
Hi Folks
This mountain maple (acer pseudoplatanus) stave was given to me by b2w (thanks again by the way bro! missing your bows on here ;)). I first planned to make a hornbow out of it and shaped it towards that a little. Then decided it was too snakey for that plan and put it tn the corner. It then was one of those who always stared at me in the workshop so I finally gave it a try...it was back in December I think...
I have never used this wood before and was unsure about what design to make. I decided to design it a little arvin-like. 4" of reflex.
(https://i.imgur.com/Z13BRXW.jpg)
I steamed out the snakeyness but most of it came back when I heat treated it... ;D
(https://i.imgur.com/nlfIv5M.jpg)
For the nocks I have seen a tentative idea on the gallerys of paleo planet. So I wanted to try that too.
(https://i.imgur.com/HfE2MYa.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/3idyW86.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/6IZ2AtT.jpg)
When I did the leather for the grip I stupidly made the stitching-holes on the wrong sides ;D 8) ;D So I decided to also stitch around the wrong holes instead of making a new leather ;)
(https://i.imgur.com/3YLwn8B.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gahvFgy.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/PXbEimI.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/kS7mqz1.jpg)
As said before. It's heat treated 3 times. I did chrono it at 28" draw - it was good speed but took some little set. Therefore I did a third heattreating and decided not to overdraw 27" anymore.
(https://i.imgur.com/nUGXKN4.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/PQXzPCx.jpg)
It's a great shooter. In fact, my best performing selfbow. I like mountain maple and arvin's design. It's 483gramms incl. grip!
(https://i.imgur.com/hqq42GY.jpg)
26" draw
(https://i.imgur.com/m588qVI.jpg)
around 27" draw
(https://i.imgur.com/1sVEmBH.jpg)
wrong angle, just for fun ;)
(https://i.imgur.com/T2P7bXG.jpg)
right after shooting 1 hour, 2,5" reflex
(https://i.imgur.com/66VbGze.jpg)
who needs osage? ;D ;D ;D
thanx for watching
-
Lovely! Very nice tiller too ;)
-
who needs osage? ;D ;D ;D
Amen brother. ;) Beautiful work.
-
thanx guys! this one I fiddeled around looong :)
-
Beautiful bow
-
Very nice! Jawge
-
Beautiful bow - I love the color and shaping of the fades!
-
Great looking bow. I really like the color of the belly heat treat and your leather wrap turned out great. Nice work!
-
beautiful congrats,, :)
-
Well done!!!
I love that kind of maple - it`s my favorite wood.
well designed, good tiller and nice nocks.
Greetz
Cord
-
Nice work!
Hawkdancer
-
That's a keeper. Congrats!
Mike
-
Such a great white wood! Nice bow. Thanks for posting.
-
Lovely bow and well done :)
Your thoughts are just like mine on this wood. We call it sycamore here :) It does make great hornbow cores. When green it will steam bend like a wet noodle :)
-
Very nice. I like the happy little accident you had with the leather on the handle. Very nice profiles
Bjrogg
-
Fine tillering and amazing bow overall.
-
Hey!
Simk, if you wanna trade some osage, I have more from that stuff ;D 8) ;D
Really great bow and tiller. You are a true master of heat treatment! Too much heat to that wood and it likes to chrysal. At least that happened to me. But she is still alive, I gave this bow to a friend and he is still happy with her.
The handle stitching doesn't really looks like an upsala but the nock wrap a little bit >:D
I will have to look in the barn tomorrw ;)
PS: sorry for being so lazy lately , will try to post one of my new lady's soon....
-
Strange I heat treat mine until it is almost black with no problems.
-
thanx Stuckinthemud, George, Kidder, WillB, bradsmith, bambule(we need pics!), Hawkdancer, M2A, Sagebrush, bownarra, bjrogg, diliviu and b2w.
glad I was finally able to lure you out from behind that stove b2w (-S I do usually heat treat to avoid chrysals, maybe you didn't hard enough. To avoid just drying out the wood and a better heat transfer I do apply some linseed oil.
Be careful no to get lost in that barn then ;D
I have no doubt you have some nice bows there....looking forward. cheers
-
Too much heat to that wood and it likes to chrysal. At least that happened to me.
That happens to me once too in the past (10 - 15 years)- I treated a bow of mountain maple and during the session the wood chrysals...
I didn‘t take pictures of my bows so I can‘t show the evidence...
-
Very nice bow! I bet it shoots really fast!
-
thanx lonbow ;D I got over 190fps shooting 8gpp. I will test the finished bow again then, also curious about the 10gpp standard...
that now is really intersting bambule (and b2w). how do those chrysals lookalike? could it be drying checks from the strong heat somehow? are they cross/diagonal or along the grain? Did you temper dry or with some oil? I found this wood takes quite a long time to actually take the heat and get the typical brown color - I therefore tempered not very aggressive but longer than e.g. ash or hazel. thanx
-
Those are really nice numbers :)
(and the draw length is 1" shorter than the standard) Awesome!
-
yes, its mighty fine. but it was on a 28" draw - and the bow didn't like that - I did another heat treating then to hide again the set...also the drawweight has gone up some. since then I only draw 27". when testing bows, chrono or flight, I often tend to overstress them,...its usually not a good idea ;)
its even documented... :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG-cYhTVwMo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG-cYhTVwMo)
-
Very well done! I really like the shape. I have been making my nocks similar to that on the last 6 or 7 bows and I really like the idea so far. Going to keep doing it. I also love a good piece of maple.
Matt
-
that now is really intersting bambule (and b2w). how do those chrysals lookalike? could it be drying checks from the strong heat somehow? are they cross/diagonal or along the grain? Did you temper dry or with some oil? I found this wood takes quite a long time to actually take the heat and get the typical brown color - I therefore tempered not very aggressive but longer than e.g. ash or hazel. thanx
To be honest, I really can‘t remember. It’s more than 10 years ago... but I know that I didn't use oil or so in the beginning of heat treating my bows. I temper my bows 4-5 inches away from the bow for a long time to get the heat deep in the wood - I don‘t want a dark color but a hard limb - it took me about 1,5 hours to temper each limb.
Greetz
Cord
-
I found this pics of the bow which chrysaled after heat treat. Don't wanna blame this wood (mountain maple) for this result - maybe it was just me who messed this up ::). 3years ago I did this build so probably my tillering wasn't so skilled at that time...
don't remember if I used oil
-
thanx Cord, always interesting to hear about how others doing it ;) I do my heat treating mostly with the quartz radiator, usually 10-15 minutes per session and limb, always checking temps with my fingers (on the back) and an ir-thermometer. Additionally using the heat gun for some spots then... usually reflexing the limb just by attaching e weight on the tip...
thanks b2w! interesting! if these occured while heat treating not while bending the bow: this to me almost looks like tension cracks caused by hard heat treating a very light and spongy wood while reflexing it. Did you reflex it while heat treating?
-
Looks great! I really like the tips with the wrappings. well done man :)
Jaap
-
The last years I was going for whole bow tempering over a charcoal fire for about 2 hours.
The results are much more better as with a heatgun. The stave holds most of the reflex and I think, the whole process is more evenly than the heatgun-work. Just take a look that I don‘t burn the wood...
Works fine for me.
Greetz
Cord