Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: swamp monkey on May 08, 2013, 02:52:29 pm
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It was a sickness with only one cure. I had to try one. So I began gathering materials for a bison horn composite bow.
Materials:
• Osage orange core
• Four bison horns (12+ inches long ea.)
• Deer leg sinew for backing bows
• bow string crafted from deer back sinew
• hide glue (yeah I bought this batch. The batch I tried to cook got me banned from the kitchen)
Tools:
• Drawknife
• Spokeshave
• Cabinet scraper
• Candle wax warmer for hide glue (works great and my wife knew what I was using it to do!)
• Clamps, lots of clamps
• Large boiling pot and tongs
• Welding gloves
• Hardwood scrap pieces for clamping use
• Naphtha thinner
• Small paint brush
• Clamping rack
• Hack saw blade for roughing up surfaces
Resources:
Jim Hamm’s bows arrows and quivers of the Native Americans. His chapter on making a bison horn composite bow is dog eared. I contacted “Indianguy “on the PA community online, and he gave a lot of good advice. His best statement was “you’ll figure it out.” Experience really was the best teacher. For the sinew processing and string making I consulted “Jackcrafty’s” posts in the build along section of the PA webiste. See for yourself how well I used what they taught me.
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In the Beginning:
I began my adventure by learning how to process sinew. I worked deer tendons from backstrap and legs into sinew fibers. It was brainless work but it took time and effort. I had a good collection of deer leg tendons and got some additional supplies from “Patches”. Many thanks Patches – that was a lot of work on you and a kind gesture. In between sinew sessions, I made the economic wheels turn with each internet purchase of bison horn.
I crafted a rack for bending and clamping work from a ripped two by four.
Core of the matter:
I began to craft my Osage core. Before I got too far into it I began to wonder if one method would be better than another. So I decided to craft two cores. One I did by chasing a growth ring on a 36” stave and tillered to 25# at 22”. This one had a bend off to one side that I took out with heat. For the other core I used an Osage piece that was wavy and far from flat. I carved and sanded out a flat 36” piece that I would not tiller until it was backed with sinew.
Yes, I was making two bows. I considered it an experiment for comparison.
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Work has just stopped inmy neck of tbe woods.
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OK I lied:
I was really making three bows. I had NEVER backed a bow. Ever. I had a 42” long Osage bow that I backed first. No belly laminates. I wanted to ensure I got my process down before I got cranking with the composite bows.
The stave image below shows the two staves I worked with. The one on the left yielded two of the bows. The portion on the right side became this sinew backed experiment bow.
So In line with my second approach I worked the stave flat with even thickness, degreased with naphtha thinner (aggressive degreaser), let it set for a while and then began painting hide glue on the back and applying hide glue, soaked sinew. I am glad I practiced. There is an art to applying sinew in a manner that looks good. I know this because mine did not look like the sinew backed bows you see on PA, but I am learning.
My daughter wanted a Cheyenne style bow, so this youth model was tillered to suit her. This bow was graced with a sinew string made from deer backstrap sinew, and pulled 29# at 21”. I named it “Prairie Wind” and she was elated.
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here the bow is at low brace and a bad pic at 21" draw. I need to photograph the bow at full brace height and get a better full draw pic.
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Horning in:
The pieces cut from the bison horn are called scales by the experts, so that is what I call them. Cutting bison horn scales smells a lot like burnt hair. Be mindful of family members if your band saw is in the garage or basement. The resulting sawdust from the cutting was oddly decorative. It was a contrast to the wood dust I was used to seeing. Horn cuts easily with a metal cutting blade. I used only the outside curve of the bison horn for my scales. To get them flat I needed to bend them, but before I did that I cleaned them up a bit with the bench sander. I was shooting for 1/8” thickness, so I took them to 1/4” thick so I had plenty of dimension to work with. Thick scales are harder to bend and take longer to heat. Dressing them up really improved the process.
I used the largest pot I could find and boiled them for about 20 minutes. It took longer to get the pot to a boil than the actual boiling. Tongs and welding gloves made this process painless – literally. Steam from the pot was hot. I had all of my clamps ready to go. I had to work fast and fumbling around with a clamp costs time. Clamping a scale flat and straight takes quick effort but it pays off. A couple of scales had to be boiled again and reclamped.
After cooling I laid out a template for the belly on each scale. I traced the template with a pencil and sanded the scale to near final width and thickness. When satisfied I roughed up the glue surfaces of the wood and horn and proceeded with degreasing.
This was new work for me. The first one was the hardest and the rest went a lot better. I would suggest having enough clamp blocks to prevent marring of your stock and to distribute clamp pressure more evenly. Also have enough clamping racks for the number of scales you have to work.
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A union made in heaven:
My wife permitted use of her candle warmer for the hide glue and that must have been just the right medicine! This part went great. The warmer kept the hide glue liquid instead of a gelatinous goo. I painted a thin layer of glue on the wood core belly and the bison horn as primer. Then I applied a second layer and put them in place for clamping. The whole effort took only a few minutes. I left this clamped up for about a week though. I wanted it good and dry. I saved the hide glue by placing it in the freezer so it could be used for sinew backing at a later time.
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Back to backing:
With one bow backing event under my belt I went for a second. I kept my bundles separate so I could tell how many legs’ worth of sinew I consumed. This short bow utilized one leg tendon per layer. After the joints and ends were wrapped I had made of use of just over two leg’s worth of sinew invested in a two layer sinew backing.
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very cool stuf swamp monkey, don't make us wait too long
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This is awesome
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Time to Tiller:
I tillered the stave that I decrowned first. I had a stiff limb and a one that bent more in the mid-section. I scraped thin layers of horn off the stiff side but with little affect. After studying on this for a while I applied a layer of sinew to the weaker limb. Things got better. One additional layer and a light scraping of the horn belly got things right where they needed to be. I have no idea what the core would have pulled before the belly lamination.
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Now we all wait:
Sorry fellas, I have to wait on some things to dry and can't get on this again until the weekend. When I report back I will have some brace shots and full draw pics.
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Watching this theread with both eyes! :o
When I'm a big grown up bowyer I want to be good enough to do one of these type of bows!!!
OneBow
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Watching this theread with both eyes! :o
When I'm a big grown up bowyer I want to be good enough to do one of these type of bows!!!
OneBow
Me too >:D
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I was wondering how this was done very resenty
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Please don't make us wait much longer, but don't rush it.
Rushing kills everything.
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Nice job on the bows fellar! You are welcome on the sinew, I got more if you need it. I like the Cheyenne style youth bow. I bet it fits her well! ;) You need to get her a reel for it and take her to shoot some fish in the swamps. I can't wait to see the final products in person (and maybe please please get to shoot one...I will be careful I promise). Keep us posted! Excellent work!
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It looks pretty beast now! I really like the contrast between the horn and the osage. Looking forward to seeing the finished product! :)
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Its looking great! Cant wait to see it finished.
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Heck yeah man this is one awesome post!
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I am pretty sure I am not competent enough to make a bow like this and I really have more interest in "Woodlands" bows and OLD Euro bow, but this is making me want to try a plains bow like this!!!! :o :) :o ???
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This is so cool. Thanks for posting pictures this is cool. Whered you get the bison horns?
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The braced and shooting pix are of the bow I used the cut first and tiller later method. Notice in the unstrung shot (inside on stair rail) you can see a gap under the bow on the left side. The string is noticeable behind that gap. The Osage had a less than straight form. So I had to keep that in mind as I tillered it. The arrow is WAY too long for this bow. Proper sized arrows will come later. I measured a mark on my arrow and shot it in first by drawing back to 15 inches then 20. I plan to work up to 22. Why am I working up to it? Because I'm like a first time bowyer all over again! I feel my heart race with each draw and an exhilaration with each arrow pass. This little bow has some serious pep. I will measure it soon.
I need to dress this one up with a tassel and some felt/ leather affectations.
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I'll be watching...
-gus
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Good thread swamp monkey.Thanks for sharing.Have fun with that little rocket launcher.
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Tomorrow afternoon I will pull out the scale and make an FD graph for the bow that I can brace. Today, is family time but before we get at that, I wanted to mention I got further along on the second bison horn bow. Below are pix of the core after I chased a ring and tillered it. 36" long, roughly an inch wide and it pulled 20# at 22". Notice that side profile is flat. I liked that a lot.
Last weekend I glued up the bison horn scales to the core. I will unclamp that tomorrow afternoon, sand and take some pix to share.
Enjoy.
Oh P.S. I added a few pix to prior posts on this thread.
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Ha, what a joy to read, thanks a lot for sharing.
Because I'm like a first time bowyer all over again! I feel my heart race with each draw and an exhilaration with each arrow pass.
;D
great, isn't it. That's why I make bows rather than chairs.
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Great thread! Great information! Great pictures! Great appreciation!
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Horn scales glued on. I have rough sanded to get uniform thickness, then scraped with a cabinet scraper, followed by 320 grit sanding. I plan on using 400 grit before I wrap the joints in sinew. Buffing wheel work should make this one gleam.
Then sinew the back.
Life is good.
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This is really cool! Do you cut the horns from base toward tip to make the scales? Also, do you overlap or do a splice between scales or just butt up to each other and wrap with sinew? Thanks for this post. I bet we'll see more of these now that you got something started ;D
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Dubois, Thanks for the kind words.
I cut base to tip, but it really wouldn't matter so long as you cut along your outlines. Hamm's book said he did flat butt to butt splices. He mentioned an overlap experiment he did, and if memory serves that did not work out. for him
Not complicated stuff. Just a lot of work. This is by far the most complicated bow I have ever attempted. Which explains my exhilaration.
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Here are the stats for the First bison horn/ Osage composite (sawn, laminated, sinewed, then tillered):
• NTN: 35 ½”
• TL: 37
• handle width: 7/8”
• Handle thickness: ½”
• Nock width: 3/8”
• Pull 45# @ 22”
Here is the F/D data:
Draw is in inches and Pull (force) is in pounds
draw pull
8 7
10 14
12 19
14 24
16 29
18 36
20 40
22 46
pic is below to refresh your memory. Tips are a bit stiffer than I care for but I didn't want to sacrifice power so I stopped.
Now to put the finishing touches on it and move forward on the second horn bow.
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Thanks for posting this, Swamp Monkey. This is another project in my future. I'll be referencing this thread when I get ready to start. 8)
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good job on bow & post. I've been wanting to try an Elk horn composite but every time I think I got the nerve to try I run and sale my sheds :o. Guess I just got no nerve :'( ;D
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Nice bow! Must be an awesome feeling to make and shoot a bow like that. When I learn a lot more I amy attempt it :)
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I've made many of these bows and may offer up some suggestions, the first bow like this I posted here won me bow of the month and I have helped several people make them successfully.
The bison horn can withstand an extreme amount of compression just like their cousins the Asian waterbuffalo which is the favorite material of the Asian and European horn bow makers.
You did a pretty good job making this bow but it seems you went about it the hard way!
I have found after making about two dozen of these bows that boiling or heating the horn is unnecessary. You should start by making the bow completely finished and tillered to about half the poundage you want the finished bow to be...for example if you want a 50# finished bow make your bow 25#. The horn and sinew will double the weight in most of the bows.
I always make the belly as flat as possible but if it is not perfect that's okay as long as it is close.
Cut your horn strips and flatten them to an even thickness on a belt sander, take your time and thin them until each section of horn is flexible.
I then glue the pieces to the belly of the bow which has been scored with cross hatch patterns, I usually start with the longest piece of my horn section and put it in the middle part of the bow, each piece is then clamped down with "C" clamps as many as you can get on the section of horn. I continue the process until the entire belly is covered with horn.
After clamped up the glue needs to set for 3 days until it has set enough to remove the clamps.
At this point I take a file and round off the sides of the horns on the edges of the bow and take hide glue and make sure any gaps are filled that might not have got enough glue.
I then sand and score the back of the bow and sinew back it.
I then let the bow cure for about 10 days before stringing it. I do not pull it but let the string settle and check the tiller, Usually it will be close to spot on at brace height if you have taken the time to make your horn pieces even thickness. If the bow is out of tiller you can lightly scrape the horn belly to bring tiller to where it needs to be. I then wrap each horn joint (butt joint) with reinforced sinew wrappings.
This will take several days to cure good enough to string the bow, I usually wait two more weeks before stringing and shooting, the bows take a while to reach their potential and get better the more you shoot it.
The Sinew backed bison horn bow pictured below is seventy pounds and cast an arrow a tad bit over 200 yards, it is the best one I have made performance wise and now lives overseas! :-\
Bows like this are not documented with a physical specimen surviving that I'm aware of but have been written about by early explorers.
Good job and thanks for taking the time to post this thread.
Eric
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That is a sweet bow love the horn.
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Eric,
Those are very helpful tips. Now that I have been through all of this I appreciate your advice all the more. You were helpful up front and now that I have one almost under my belt as well.
Of the two methods I have tried, the one where I tiller the bow first then add the scales is preferred. That seems more in line with your process.
When I make a third horn bow it will be a bit longer, use one more horn scale and I plan to use the tips you have provided here. thank you.
Attached are some updated pics with some artful touches.
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Eric, your stuff is so classy. I am in awe. Thanks for sharing that pic. It is a nice ensemble.
I am working on placing a tassel on this bow and then stringing it again. This time with a sinew string. I will post pics when done. No rush though. I am enjoying the ride.
The only thing on this bow that is not in line with an authentic plains bow is the thread. I used synthetic thread for wraps.
Next step on the "tiller first and apply scales later bow" is to apply sinew. I have been pounding leg tendons and will have more to report in a little while. Again - not rushing.
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can't you spiral cut horn and steam it flat so you can use just 2 horns for one bow and not have to monkey with all the trouble you had to go through??
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I'd take Eric's advice and not over complicate the process. This is valuable information. Thanks Eric.
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Tails it is:
I attached the tassel with sinew and hide glue. I want things to cure up really well before I string it again. the red on the sinew is from the dye. The pix were taken minutes after i wrapped it.
As for the spiral cut on the horn. Yes you can. Tim-O generated a post a while back that showed how this is accomplished. I think he even won BOM once with a bow like that.
The two bows I am making simulate what the plains people most likely would have made. As best I can tell they did not cut spirals. They cut strips off the outside bend of the horn and used that. I am not saying the spiral way is wrong. It just isn’t what the native people did and not what I was attempting to recreate.
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When cutting your strip from the outside curve of the horn and not heating them flat, which way are you glueing them onto your core? Would you glue them so that what was once the outside of the horn is now the exposed part of your belly, or is the outside of the horn the side glued to your core? Thanks.
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The part of the horn that was on the in side of the horn is the part I glue to the wood. The out side of the horn becomes the the outside of the belly.
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Thats what i figured, thanks. Bow looks awesome!
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Update from the Bison Horn Bow Adventure:
First Horn Bow: I am crafting a new sinew string. I was shooting the bow I referenced here on an earlier post (where I sinew backed for the first time). As I was unstringing it I nicked the loop as it passed over the nock edge. Yeah, the nock had a sharp edge that needed sanding, but it got me to thinking about the thickness of the string. So I am making a new one for the bison horn bow that is complete (tassel and all). Remember this is the one I tillered after I glued the horn on. The bow works fine but it was a long path to get there.
The second horn bow: I used a piece of Osage for the core that I tillered first and then glued the bison horn on. One coat of sinew had dried for about two weeks. Today, I put the second coat of sinew. All told, I think I used about three deer leg tendons on this bow. I will let that dry for a couple weeks before I try to string it.
I have not come up with a way to decorate this one, but I am looking forward to studying on it. Quill work might look nice and that would be a great excuse for me to learn yet another skill. ;) like I don't have enough skills to tinker with.
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Are you going to recurve and attach syahs?
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I thought about flipping the tips a bit to improve string angle at full draw. That would have to be done to the wooden core before glue up and I thought about it a little too late. So for these two it is a no go. Maybe next time.
As for Siyahs, I am trying to fashion these bows in the style of Plains tribes. To my knowledge Plains tribes did not use those. So I willfully chose not to do those on these bows.
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I reread Jim Hamm's chapter on composite bows and noticed he said he put his in the sun to dry. SO I placed this recent horn bow in the sun for the past several days. I have not witnessed a bow take on a reflex thanks to sinew before. The core was flat. After gluing the horn on it was flat.
On Monday I saw a 1/4 " of reflex. As of Tuesday it had an inch of relfex! Whoa. I am so putting that other bow out in the sun.
This is like watching a magic trick. It is sooooo cool. I will post a pic later.
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SM
This is gonna be a better bow than the first I can already tell! 8) YOU DA MAN!
Eric
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I got busy with other things and put the final bison horn bow aside to dry. This weekend I have it strung up as Eric (indian guy) suggested. When I get it strung and shot in I will post more pix.
Meanwhile, I have posted pix of the bow with fully dry sinew and the reflex.
Oh boy!
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Thanks for sharing all of your experiences making these sinewed horn bow shorties.A lot of work as I know.That sinew is some amazing stuff ai'nt it?The more you work with it the better you'll get.
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Please tell me you ARE bringing this beauty with you to MOJAM!!!???
OneBow
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You are making me really really want to make a horn bow
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great build along and great bows, i would love to have a go at this one day.
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First off, beautiful work on these!
For anyone with some experience with this....how long of a core would you recommend to get to a 27" draw with this design. I have a 55" belly split of osage chased to a ring, only about 3/8" thick 1" wide and thought this might be a good way to use it. I am unsure whether I should leave it the full 55" or cut it down some to make the sinew/horn really work. Also, would you be willing to share any good sources for horn? You can PM me if you like.
Thanks a lot!
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If I had to guess...
http://www.hideandfur.com/inventory/2208.html
www.hideandfur.com/inventory/2213.html
I think they sell every single part of an animal ;)
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First off, beautiful work on these!
For anyone with some experience with this....how long of a core would you recommend to get to a 27" draw with this design. I have a 55" belly split of osage chased to a ring, only about 3/8" thick 1" wide and thought this might be a good way to use it. I am unsure whether I should leave it the full 55" or cut it down some to make the sinew/horn really work. Also, would you be willing to share any good sources for horn? You can PM me if you like.
Thanks a lot!
uncle duck thanks for the kind words. I appreciate them.
Concerning bison horn bow length, I think sinew will be more limiting than the horn. I know Eric (Indian Guy) has made some of these with 5-6 bison horn scales. Mine uses 4 and is 36 inches long. Add two more sections and you get just over 50".
However, read up on your sinew backing and you will find that the bow you have is getting to the upper limit for sinew backing, but should work fine. The additional mass added with sinew and glue, starts to cut into your performance as the bow gets longer. That is why most sinew backed bows are short. Whether or not you should put bison horn on there to fix the split is another matter. I may not have enough experience to say much. IMO it wouldn't hurt.
I noticed I forgot to post pix at full draw. :( I got wrapped up in my sinew cable making project and forgot. (posted in primitive skills) I will try to address the lack of pix on this one sometime soon. :D So many projects . . . So little time. I know ya'll know what I mean. ;)
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looking forward to it :o
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I enjoyed your adventure. Nice looking bows. I have about 15 sets of asian water buffalo horns that I shipped to myself before I left Thailand last month and resettled in MN for the year and they should be arriving in the next month if anyone is interested. Most are 20"-22" or so per horn. Matched sets.
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uncle duck thanks for the kind words. I appreciate them.
Concerning bison horn bow length, I think sinew will be more limiting than the horn. I know Eric (Indian Guy) has made some of these with 5-6 bison horn scales. Mine uses 4 and is 36 inches long. Add two more sections and you get just over 50".
However, read up on your sinew backing and you will find that the bow you have is getting to the upper limit for sinew backing, but should work fine. The additional mass added with sinew and glue, starts to cut into your performance as the bow gets longer. That is why most sinew backed bows are short. Whether or not you should put bison horn on there to fix the split is another matter. I may not have enough experience to say much. IMO it wouldn't hurt.
I noticed I forgot to post pix at full draw. :( I got wrapped up in my sinew cable making project and forgot. (posted in primitive skills) I will try to address the lack of pix on this one sometime soon. :D So many projects . . . So little time. I know ya'll know what I mean. ;)
What I meant was this was a belly split off of a stave, the other half is already a bow and I have this chunk as a left over. I was thinking of cutting down to around 45-ish inches to get a little extra draw length.
Looking forward to the full draw pics.
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Here are pix of the braced and full draw bow. As a recap this one had the wood tillered first then had the bison horn scales applied. I liked this method best.
The full draw picture makes it look like I am shooting farther up on the upper limb than I should be. that is some funky trick of the camera. I had the bow canted. That is all.
Next I need to make some arrows to fit the shorter draw. I am excited. :)
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a few more pix.
BTW this is a peppy little bow. When I shot my first arrow it screamed off my knuckle. I was slack jawed for a moment. :o
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A few shots before I had the handle and tassel on. The reflex is roughly an inch depending on humidity. BTW I sewed the handle on with a strand of backstrap sinew. The hair is mule hair dyed red. thanks for looking guys and sorry for the delay in getting the final pix posted.
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Those are both amazing bows. What I can teach my Grandchildren is something I wish I knew when I was young.