Primitive Archer

Main Discussion Area => Bows => Flight Bows => Topic started by: mikekeswick on June 23, 2017, 02:21:41 am

Title: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on June 23, 2017, 02:21:41 am
I've made shooting machine for my heaviest Turkish flight bow because it is too heavy for me to shoot in full control with the light arrows. I also have a new batch of flight arrows made up and ready to go. I've got high hopes for this new rig and will post the results as soon as we get a nice day with no wind.
Bow is 90# + and my arrows are all from 190 grains to around 250 grains. 6 piece Tonkin cane and some pitch pine and deal. There has got to be a 400 yard + shot is here somewhere!
I'm working on making a light string for it at the moment but the string is very high and I'm a bit scared going light with the linen I have as it seems a bit brittle, breaking at 7 - 8# per strand. Maybe it is a bit dry?
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: avcase on June 23, 2017, 09:12:20 pm
Very cool!

Where are you doing the shooting?  You can always lightly dampen a linen string with a damp cloth and pluck the string a couple of times to shake off any excess moisture. Only a couple grains of water can radically increase the strength of linen.

As an alternative, you can use reeled silk.  Silk is much less sensitive to humidity and variation in tension distributed across the strands. On the other hand, a linen string has to be made perfect, but the performance will be much better.

I look forward to your results. 400+ yards is a pretty elite club for Primitive flight equipment.

Alan
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: BowEd on June 24, 2017, 01:26:04 am
I would say so too.90#'s shooting a 200 grain arrow.That's almost a dry fire.I can see why your concerned about the string holding up.If there's anyone who can do it you can Mike.Wish you success with it.
I'll try to get a pic of the shoooting machine Gary made over here.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on June 24, 2017, 04:36:24 am
(http://i492.photobucket.com/albums/rr283/mikekeswick/flightmachine.jpg) (http://s492.photobucket.com/user/mikekeswick/media/flightmachine.jpg.html)

Here is the rough and ready mk1 version. I threw it together to make sure the idea was going to work :)
I might be going down to my friends farm to shoot it this afternoon, it is windy today though. Thanks for the info about dampening the linen strings. What strength would you be aiming for in a string for this bow Alan?
I'd be interested to see it Ed. A photo would be great.

 
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: BowEd on June 25, 2017, 08:28:20 am
Awesome!!!OK Mike.I like that mk1.Garys' gone up north fishing in Canada at the moment.I'd think with a shooting machine that it's got to be securely fixed to the ground too while shooting.The bow looks awesome!!!
Gary made one to see the difference in speed between a trigger release and finger release.Don't know how heavy duty it is.Think it's on a saw horse type set up.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: avcase on June 26, 2017, 03:32:09 pm
I start with a total strength of string that is four times the draw weight of the bow. So this would be 4x90=360 pounds. I'd expect a quality fully served linen string with reinforced loops will have a total mass of about 90 grains. 

I can gone down to 3 times the draw weight of the bow for a reeled silk string, but the strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight of silk is not as good as linen, so the performance suffers.

Alan
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on June 28, 2017, 02:43:41 am
Thanks Alan, 4x strength it is then. I'll see what I can come up with and see what the weight comes out at.
I haven't been able to get out and shooting this thing yet as the fields I use are full of grass for hay. They are being cut in the next week or so. I made an overdraw device for the machine and I can now shoot 24 inch arrows at a 28 inch draw.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Del the cat on June 28, 2017, 03:54:25 am
Let's have a pic showing your trigger arrangement and a long shot pretty please :)
It will provide some vicarious satisfaction  ;D
Del
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on June 30, 2017, 04:48:05 am
No problem Del. I'll try and get one today. The trigger is a compound trigger activated by a series of levers that move when they hit a stop on the rail. I need to tie a D-loop onto the string to get a true straight pull on the small nocks and make a few changes but it works fairly well. I have also added an overdraw so can now shoot the 24 inch arrows at 28.
I've just got permission to use some perfect fields, much better than my old place. I've now got about 1000yards :) The grass is being cut in the next week or so and hopefully we will have some nice weather by then.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Del the cat on June 30, 2017, 05:00:28 am
Ta,
Lucky man, I have trouble getting permission to shoot anywhere suitable near me. Air traffic control at Stansted Airport keep chucking me out ;)
Del
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Aaron H on June 30, 2017, 09:49:50 am
Very cool Mike, bow and machine both look great
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Selfbowman on July 03, 2017, 05:55:26 pm
I like it mike. See ya in August. Arvin
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Badger on July 03, 2017, 10:06:57 pm
  I bought a compound trigger for my machine that uses a thumb trigger that pushes instead of pulls. Makes the triggering a lot easier
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on July 04, 2017, 02:15:41 am
  I bought a compound trigger for my machine that uses a thumb trigger that pushes instead of pulls. Makes the triggering a lot easier

Haha yes my friend told me about those when he saw what I had made....doh! I just used what I had lying about.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on August 22, 2017, 02:45:39 am
So I finally got around to letting a few fly.
The wind wasn't ideal, about 20 mph from over my shoulder and I had a trigger malfunction so only got to shoot half of my arrows. I noticed that the bow was only drawn to 27 inches when I had finished, it can go to 28 1/2. String was a 16 strand B50.
Best shot 470 ish yards.
I 'm guessing but maybe with ideal conditions and a good linen string, full draw etc this bow might push 550 - 600yds.
I have a lot of new hornbows slowly progressing and am making some very heavy Turkish flight bows to try and get close to the legendary distances of old :) Adam has been getting close and that is fuel for the fire!
I also have a new order of Tonkin cane coming to make more sectional boo arrows a la Alan Cases methods. Thanks for that build-a-long Alan.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Del the cat on August 22, 2017, 06:07:28 am
Nice :)
Del
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: stuckinthemud on August 22, 2017, 07:21:58 am
Very nice!
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Badger on August 22, 2017, 09:30:35 am
  You got some good distance
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: BowEd on August 22, 2017, 10:08:01 am
Yes pretty darn good.Glad to see your efforts coming to light.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: bowster on August 23, 2017, 03:16:04 am
well done, not so easy to copy this distance!
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on August 24, 2017, 07:13:30 am
Cheers :)
I might rig up my chrono to get some arrow speed numbers next time.
I've got a new trigger to fix to the machine now.
I've also been contemplating making some sectional arrows from purpleheart. I have a lovely piece of a perfect grained board left that isn't much use for anything else. I may also try greenheart and some ipe I have. I'd like to try some out of b.locust due to its stiffness but I have none left.
Hopefully I will be getting back down to my 'range' at the weekend with all the problems ironed out. fingers crossed the weather is better.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on August 25, 2017, 02:04:55 am
I got the p/heart and g/heart shafts glued up. Around 220 grains to 250 grains.
I would like to see what a dyneema string would do for this bow but I fear the worst after reading about Adam's failures with fastflight. Although I'm not precious about this bow so may give it a go.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Aaron H on August 25, 2017, 07:54:52 am
Very cool Mike, I would love to see those arrows you're working on too.  Good luck this weekend, hope the weather is cooperative  (R
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on August 31, 2017, 08:45:20 am
I went to the fields the other day with my 60# Turk warbow. The flight bow had raised a few sinew fibers on the back so I removed the last layer and put down another continuous layer. The original layer was some water buffalo backstrap, it had a 'dry' texture when I removed it. This backstrap didn't allow me to reduce its thickness as much as I would've liked to, the fibers kept snapping when trying to go finer. I always try to get the fibers as fine as possible so that the glue gets to 'wet' more of the sinew. I think this is the reason the Turks only used leg sinew, it is softer and possible to split finer for the better wetting of the fibers leading to a more homogenous sinew layer.  I put more sinew on than I took off so it is likely to be close to 100# when dry.
Anyway I really only went to test the machine as I had made a few changes. It is now working perfectly and is strong enough for the 100# plus bows I want to test out. The warbow shot best with arrows around 280 - 300 grain arrows and consistently put the best arrow 15 yards or so further than the rest. Best distance was 410 yards. The lighter sectional purpleheart/greenheart/Tonkin arrows didn't fly so great from this bow but still were going around 360 yards.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Aaron H on August 31, 2017, 08:51:23 am
Very cool Mike, how does that compare using the same bow drawn by hand?
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Badger on August 31, 2017, 10:47:35 am
  Great distances. The heavier arrows do tend to fly better, hard to give up the potential speed of the lighter arrows but they just don't seem to carry as well.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on September 05, 2017, 09:57:50 am
My re-sinewed flight bow is ready to be tested again. It is somewhere around 100#@28 now.
The new greenheart 6 piece arrows are ready to be tested. Turkish style nocks made from osage, parchment fletchings and antler points, weights from 220 - 240 grains. They are surprisingly stiff. I'll take some photos of the arrows soon and report back on distances when I get a chance to get out on a nice day.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Badger on September 05, 2017, 10:04:22 am
  I am predicting you hit 500 yards! Good luck and keep us posted
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: mikekeswick on September 07, 2017, 03:34:23 am
Very cool Mike, how does that compare using the same bow drawn by hand?
Just noticed your question....All my flight arrows are shorter than 28 and would need me to shoot with a siper. This is something I haven't tried yet. I rigged the machine up with an overdraw to accommodate the shorter arrows with a 28 inch draw. I guess as long as the draw time is the same then there shouldn't be much of a difference. I can set the machine up at 45 degs +/- and it will always shoot the same so it will be more consistent - useful for determining which arrows are actually flying the best.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: BowEd on September 19, 2017, 11:42:33 am
I'd think they would shoot faster or farther from a trigger release opposed to a finger release.Probably not as much using a thumb ring yet though.Not as much friction & time during release I guess.
Title: Re: Shooting machine and a heavy Turkish flight bow
Post by: Kviljo on September 23, 2017, 03:01:18 pm
Cool stuff Mike! Congratulations on the great distances! My bows turned out to be so light I could draw them by hand this year, but for next spring I will have some heavier ones too, to machine-shoot. This is a fun game :laugh: