Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: DC on September 14, 2020, 01:17:29 pm
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I've been building the same design bow for a while and I've got it to the point where it's taking very little set. What do you think would be the next logical change? Shorter? Narrower? Other?
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I'm at that point too. Im going up in draw weight and going up in draw length. If none of those suit you, id try to go up in reflex, which is also on my to do list.
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I think you should shrink the design to around 48 inches and try to really see what it can do in flight.
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I think you should shrink the design to around 48 inches and try to really see what it can do in flight.
would that advice include reducing the draw length also?
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I think you should shrink the design to around 48 inches and try to really see what it can do in flight.
I'm at 66" with 28" DL. So you're suggesting 48" with what, 22-23"? That's a DL of almost half the bow with a full handle?
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I think you should shrink the design to around 48 inches and try to really see what it can do in flight.
would that advice include reducing the draw length also?
Of course. About 22-23.
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OK. Some other dimensions. We know that we can half the DW by halving the width or reducing the thickness by an eighth. Do we have a rule for length? I've never heard one but that doesn't mean anything ;D. I know that even if we did putting all three together is pretty much going to be a WAG but it would be an educated WAG :D
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I would definitely make it wider.
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I have a Boo Yew bow I made my grandson a few years back. It's 44" long and pulls 10# at 21". It's 1/2" wide and 3/8" thick. It took a little set so that tells me that it was bent as tight as it should go. He was pulling it further than 21" when he stopped using it. A little deflex in the handle was in the plan anyway. 1 1/2" wide would make it 30#. It's a "longbow" so a little reflex/recurve will help. Making it 48" long will hurt the DW but I think it's good insurance. I'll go see what kind of scraps I have.
I found the next bow I made him. It's an RD 50" long, 7/8" wide about 3/8" thick and it pulls 16# at 22. It looks like a nice bend.
I have a plan ;D
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what ever you do, have fun,, :) but the shorter bow for flight sounds very interesting,,
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I've been building the same design bow for a while and I've got it to the point where it's taking very little set. What do you think would be the next logical change? Shorter? Narrower? Other?
I don’t know what you can do next. The backed yew bow that you sent to the recent flight competition is perfect.
It would be cool to see you come up with a bow optimized for shooting very light 23” long flight arrows.
Alan
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[quote author=avcase link=topic=68827.msg965869#msg965869
I don’t know what you can do next. The backed yew bow that you sent to the recent flight competition is perfect.
It would be cool to see you come up with a bow optimized for shooting very light 23” long flight arrows.
Alan
[/quote]
Thank you Alan but really I just copied Marc and got lucky :-[ :-[
Well I've started on the bow based on what PatM suggested. We'll see what happens. It will be a mini clone of the Boo Yew. I was having trouble figuring out what a "long flight" arrow was. That puzzled me for a bit.
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OK. Some other dimensions. We know that we can half the DW by halving the width or reducing the thickness by an eighth. Do we have a rule for length? I've never heard one but that doesn't mean anything ;D. I know that even if we did putting all three together is pretty much going to be a WAG but it would be an educated WAG :D
shorter length mean thinner also, and if you have a proroportion of back thickness to belly thickness in mind, it would mean reducing both.
another question you might ask is how to proportion working limb to non working handle length and will you scale down the radius of the static tips also?
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I'm going to reduce the handle to minimum length even if the heel of my hand is on the lower limb. On the last bow I made I opened up the radius of the recurves so the string will lift off earlier. I'm going to use that caul to put the recurves and some of the reflex in this one.
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thats so cool, DC,, keep in mind that each bow will lead you to the next improvement, its a journey,, enjoy,,
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This is fun stuff. Just wish I had a place to shoot distance. Dam trees ;D
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Keeping the angle of recurve for the leverage but reducing the length. This will save you tip weight whilst keeping the energy storage. Also giving you slightly more working limb. Short and very sharp recurves are the next logical step. Cut kerfs and use boiling if necessary.
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I think his tips are as short and sharp as he can get them.
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I have been saying for over a decade that when Mark St Louis style bows start showing up at the flight shoots we will all have to up our game. The time has come it looks like. One advantage your longer bow has is that it has excellent energy storage and is also very efficient. I believe your efficiency is coming from two places primarily. One is that you limited your working limb area, too much working limb kills efficiency as it gives the limb too much opportunity to distort or vibrate at the end of the power stroke. Another successful feature on your bow is that you successfully kept set to a minimum which is what causes hysteresis in wooden bow. The longer bow will allow you to shoot heavier flight arrows than a lesser bow could get away with. With a legal 2" overdraw you might try building the same bow you have now maybe 62" long and going for 50# at 26". This would allow you to shoot a 24" arrow. I believe with very well made arrow you could approach 500 yards if everything came together.
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Keeping the angle of recurve for the leverage but reducing the length. This will save you tip weight whilst keeping the energy storage. Also giving you slightly more working limb. Short and very sharp recurves are the next logical step. Cut kerfs and use boiling if necessary.
Doesn't reducing the length reduce the leverage? Recurves are confusing me. I may think about it a bit and maybe start a different thread.
I think his tips are as short and sharp as he can get them.
I am pretty confident about the way I do them so it seems that they could be a little tighter. But then I'd be risking them breaking and I'm too cheap to waste the yew. Kerfing would work.
I have been saying for over a decade that when Mark St Louis style bows start showing up at the flight shoots we will all have to up our game. The time has come it looks like. One advantage your longer bow has is that it has excellent energy storage and is also very efficient. I believe your efficiency is coming from two places primarily. One is that you limited your working limb area, too much working limb kills efficiency as it gives the limb too much opportunity to distort or vibrate at the end of the power stroke. Another successful feature on your bow is that you successfully kept set to a minimum which is what causes hysteresis in wooden bow. The longer bow will allow you to shoot heavier flight arrows than a lesser bow could get away with. With a legal 2" overdraw you might try building the same bow you have now maybe 62" long and going for 50# at 26". This would allow you to shoot a 24" arrow. I believe with very well made arrow you could approach 500 yards if everything came together.
Why did it take so long for Marc's style to show up? Any time he posted a bow people said how fast it looked. The next step seems obvious.
All these things you mention are the stuff that I lucked into. There was no planning involved so I'm not sure what to change and what to leave alone. It's fun trying though.
If I added an overdraw that would bump me up to complex composite wouldn't it? I'm still puzzling out the rules. If that was the case then I should also be taking advantage of the multi lam option, if it is an advantage.
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I thought the point of shooting a shorter bows was to shoot lighter arrow,, so why would a heavier flight arrow be better,, just asking,,
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ok DC,, the way you are lucking into things is a process you are great at,, so just continure as you always do,, like I said,, when you make the next one, it will help you luck into the new design you are developing,,the chronograph, eliminates the ideas that are not working ,,,,
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Recurves are confusing me.
Same here. I think there are two different advantages at work at the same time.
1. the string angle allows for a higher early draw weight
2. higher stresses allow limbs to be lighter.
the first is about stored energy, while the second is about efficiency after release.
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Recurves are confusing me.
Same here. I think there are two different advantages at work at the same time.
1. the string angle allows for a higher early draw weight
2. higher stresses allow limbs to be lighter.
the first is about stored energy, while the second is about efficiency after release.
Well, let's do it here. To start, what difference does the radius make? I guess assuming the same total reflex.
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string angle?
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Keeping the angle of recurve for the leverage but reducing the length. This will save you tip weight whilst keeping the energy storage. Also giving you slightly more working limb. Short and very sharp recurves are the next logical step. Cut kerfs and use boiling if necessary.
Doesn't reducing the length reduce the leverage? Recurves are confusing me. I may think about it a bit and maybe start a different thread.
I think his tips are as short and sharp as he can get them.
I am pretty confident about the way I do them so it seems that they could be a little tighter. But then I'd be risking them breaking and I'm too cheap to waste the yew. Kerfing would work.
I have been saying for over a decade that when Mark St Louis style bows start showing up at the flight shoots we will all have to up our game. The time has come it looks like. One advantage your longer bow has is that it has excellent energy storage and is also very efficient. I believe your efficiency is coming from two places primarily. One is that you limited your working limb area, too much working limb kills efficiency as it gives the limb too much opportunity to distort or vibrate at the end of the power stroke. Another successful feature on your bow is that you successfully kept set to a minimum which is what causes hysteresis in wooden bow. The longer bow will allow you to shoot heavier flight arrows than a lesser bow could get away with. With a legal 2" overdraw you might try building the same bow you have now maybe 62" long and going for 50# at 26". This would allow you to shoot a 24" arrow. I believe with very well made arrow you could approach 500 yards if everything came together.
Why did it take so long for Marc's style to show up? Any time he posted a bow people said how fast it looked. The next step seems obvious.
All these things you mention are the stuff that I lucked into. There was no planning involved so I'm not sure what to change and what to leave alone. It's fun trying though.
If I added an overdraw that would bump me up to complex composite wouldn't it? I'm still puzzling out the rules. If that was the case then I should also be taking advantage of the multi lam option, if it is an advantage.
I think Marks bows were not showing up because they are not easy to make. They do require skill and careful tillering. A good reflexed longbow or recurve can come pretty close to them so competition hasn't forced any of us to really put everything into a bow. With Arvin showing up and his team competition has now gotten pretty tough. The next few years are going to be interesting. Chuck Loffler is also building competitive bows. I wish I was younger and not getting out instead of in.
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I thought the point of shooting a shorter bows was to shoot lighter arrow,, so why would a heavier flight arrow be better,, just asking,,
Brad light arrows fly much faster but are also much harder to tune and don't carry near as well through the air. A heavier arrow might just be denser material with the same draw co-effecient as a much lighter arrow so will carry further and be slightly less finicky coming out of the bow. I think above 400 yards will require the lighter arrows but I also believe a fast 50# bow can hit 400 yards with maybe a 250 or 260 grain arrow. I hit 386 while practicing using a 260 grain purple heart arrow. The bow I used was not exceptional in anyway but it was fresh which gives a bow a big advantage.
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Recurves were also killed off by borderline dogma in TTBB.
The old statics of the past were generally not TOO short in length of lever.
It's the deflex in the handle that's a bit of a change but fwiw I think a non deflexed has the potential to shoot faster, even if it's only for a few shots. That's all that matters in flight though.
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I think that the deflex just allows you to use a bit of the brace height to actually send the arrow. The brace height of a deflexed bow is only about 2-3" if you get my drift. That means you get about 3-4" of draw length without straining the bow any/much more. But then you stress it more by putting in a bunch of reflex. I dunno but there seems to be a net gain in there somewhere. It's hard to think about because everything depends on everything else. :D
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Another factor is how close to the handle that the limbs are working, Lots of extra draw length in those 2" closer to the handle that most of us are not bending. That does a lot to keep the set down as it is equivalent to drawing a much shorter draw length bow as far as stress goes.
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I think that the deflex just allows you to use a bit of the brace height to actually send the arrow. The brace height of a deflexed bow is only about 2-3" if you get my drift. That means you get about 3-4" of draw length without straining the bow any/much more. But then you stress it more by putting in a bunch of reflex. I dunno but there seems to be a net gain in there somewhere. It's hard to think about because everything depends on everything else. :D
I've been putting notes together on this subject now for years. I used them all for a basis to build my bow that did so well for me in flight and broad head shooting. Your explanation of how deflex works is spot on. There is a point of diminished returns and I have been working for the last four years to find that point of balance. I started off with a 48 inch long self bow drawn to 26 inches, and went up in bow length from there. I found 48 to be too short for any practical use for me, and the early draw weight suffered greatly from the deflex it took to make the bow work. As a result,, to keep bow energy high, I went way high in draw weight. I however did not start experiments with reflex to up the early draw weight yet back then so perhaps you will find luck with that with your 48 inch bow.
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To start, what difference does the radius make?
my only thought was about keeping the working limbs length proportional to the overall length if you were thinking to scale the existing design down.
Recurves were also killed off by borderline dogma in TTBB.
The old statics of the past were generally not TOO short in length of lever.
It's the deflex in the handle that's a bit of a change but fwiw I think a non deflexed has the potential to shoot faster, even if it's only for a few shots. That's all that matters in flight though.
Pat, can you be more specific about which dogma you consider borderline?
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That recurving is not so great because it overly strains wood and heavier tips could smother cast. Add to that sinew being looked down upon for adding weight and decreasing cast.
Yet people back in the day made sinewed statics that pushed closer to 600 yards.
Of course this was very likely done with parchment fletching and overdraws but it seems like we once again have a class that will accept these things again.
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DC the bow you sent did well. If I could build to the same workmanship I would use the same caul same length but wider for a fifty pound bow. Arvin
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DC the bow you sent did well. If I could build to the same workmanship I would use the same caul same length but wider for a fifty pound bow. Arvin
Agreed
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Well, I did that. I made an almost identical bow but 25% wider. It's 50#@28". I dug a little deep toward one tip and got a bit of hinge. I glued a splint in. It was 4" long and maybe a millimetre(1/32") thick. Best joint I've ever made. It almost disappeared. I shot the bow and got shot shot after shot over 200, best was 204 I think. Just for kicks I shot my lightest arrow which is 305 grains. I got 238 fps. I've never shot any arrow that fast. I told Badger and he told me that the splint counted as a lam(which it does) and that bumps the bow up to Primitive Complex Composite. I'm going to try again after I finish this 35# shorty.
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That will get it done. Pretty sure. Arvin
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Well, I did that. I made an almost identical bow but 25% wider. It's 50#@28". I dug a little deep toward one tip and got a bit of hinge. I glued a splint in. It was 4" long and maybe a millimetre(1/32") thick. Best joint I've ever made. It almost disappeared. I shot the bow and got shot shot after shot over 200, best was 204 I think. Just for kicks I shot my lightest arrow which is 305 grains. I got 238 fps. I've never shot any arrow that fast. I told Badger and he told me that the splint counted as a lam(which it does) and that bumps the bow up to Primitive Complex Composite. I'm going to try again after I finish this 35# shorty.
Great speed and very efficient, I normally have to drop down to about 200 grains to get that speed.
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I forgot to mention the obvious stuff before.....
Shorter bending section concentrating the bend closer to the handle.
More energy storage :)
Sinew and as before the shortest, sharpest recurves you can manage.
If you want it for flight don't deflex the handle. If you want it to last for thousands of shots deflex the handle a little :)
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Does sinew just count as a lam for flight?
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Does sinew just count as a lam for flight?
Yes sinew is counted as a lam, or just one additional material. 2 materials simple composite more than 2 is complex.
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I don't have a lot of sinew experience but that seems like an opening. Surely a sinew backed bow would out shoot a comparable hard backed bow, wouldn't it?
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sinew backing is infinitely variable and interesting,, I think it would be a great skill for you to learn,, its never boring,, :NN
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I don't have a lot of sinew experience but that seems like an opening. Surely a sinew backed bow would out shoot a comparable hard backed bow, wouldn't it?
I would say yes. The trade bow I made a few years ago was a "tri-lam" It impressed me with its cast.
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The trick is making it 'work' enough.
Concetrating the bend closer to the handle will give a faster tip speed. Combine with the shortest sharpest recurves. Sinew heavily crowned and concentrated in the inner limb to help that area, start to feather it out about mid limb.
Sinew will (should!) allow you to start off with more intial reflex. The problem is overstraining the belly.....once it starts to take set the return speed goes...
I haven't been making any fun bows for too long all this flight shooting and performance talk is giving me the itch again haha
Good luck on your journey DC :)
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How does a Martin style bow fair in the flight shooting game?
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The Martin style IS a flight bow. In the past that's what people tended to use.
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The trick is making it 'work' enough.
Concetrating the bend closer to the handle will give a faster tip speed. Combine with the shortest sharpest recurves. Sinew heavily crowned and concentrated in the inner limb to help that area, start to feather it out about mid limb.
Sinew will (should!) allow you to start off with more intial reflex. The problem is overstraining the belly.....once it starts to take set the return speed goes...
I haven't been making any fun bows for too long all this flight shooting and performance talk is giving me the itch again haha
Good luck on your journey DC :)
In a wood based tr-lam with sinew I think it helps to first back the intermediate layer in severe reflex and then glue that to a less reflexed belly
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Thanks Bownarra. We seem to get a little burst of flight enthusiasm this time of year. I don't know what causes it ;) ;) ;)
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Concetrating the bend closer to the handle will give a faster tip speed. Combine with the shortest sharpest recurves.
Mike,
the bend near the handle leaves the outers relatively stiff? leaving you free to play with different amounts of reflex or various radius to change string angle/liftoff contact points.
What is the reason you recommend "shortest sharpest recurves"?