David Hook (Dragonman) of Wales, Great Britain Wins the Laminate Category for November
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,16001.0.html
This is one complicated bow:
I posted unfinished pics of this bow 5-6 months ago, it has been balanced/tillered with heat and pressure and decorated and the sinew has had nearly 8 months to dry. This bow is the practice run to my first horn bow. If I knew what I know now , I would have stressed the bow much more, it should have more reflex and be 6 inchs shorter, to get the best out of these materials ( I believe) . But still , it is a reasonable shooter, it feels steady with not much hand shock. but I know the potential is there for more speed and power!!
It has a bamboo back, very thin ipe core and 3 layers of Scottish red stag leg tendon/sinew. 56" ntn. nearly 1 1/2" wide for most of the limb. The siyas are taken from a natural bend in a piece of Welsh oak, and the glue was made of cow hide. It shoots about 58lbs at 27"
I glued several sinew wraps down the limbs because as the sinew dried and shrank it caused a few longitudinal splits in the bamboo , i thought the wraps would be a good precaution, but now I think them unnecessary , I just lacked faith in the hide glue.
after unstringing it returns to about 7" of reflex in a few hours.
I didn'y copy any specific style of bow , just used what I had and it turned out like this. I guess that a bow like this could have been made any where in asia!!!
Actually, I think the main difficulty with this type of bow is -patience-, all the individual operations are quite straight forward!!
the real credit goes in making a bow with a good performance not just good looks. This one is not bad but coud be better, I reckon one of my boo backed ipe bows is faster!!! Time involved: many hours , lost count, took 8 months. These arent the origanal siyas ,one of the first ones broke and nearly hit me in the head, so I soaked off the sinew from the tips and replaced them, its been a long term project!!!
"Eye Candy" sums up the comments about this bow:
-"This bow is a one of a kind piece of art. Colors are unusual for a bow but its nice to see something different." Jesse-S
-"A very nice bow and fantastic workmanship." Cooper
-"Amazing work! I d k if i have the patience to build bows like that! This one really rocks, dragonman" radius
-"That is very impressive, you really have some talent Dragonman. I like the blue color too, we don't see much of blue colored bows." orcbow
-"Congratulations on a very beautiful work of art and complicated bow to build. For your first horn bow, you did awesome. We are often our own worst critics and always learn what we could do better on a bow. But as you have heard from some very experienced bowyers that is an accomplishment to be proud of." Keenan
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