Primitive Archer

Understandable. There isn’t much there that isn’t a bow.

Bjrogg

Thank you for the warm welcome! This is one serious rabbit hole.

I've had my core and horn strips ready for weeks now. They were both made perfectly flat, then grooved 2 mm (not matching) and sized for several days with thin hide glue (220 bloom).

I'm pretty much physically ready to do the horn/wood glue up but I've totally stalled. I'm running into a couple roadblocks. Mainly around work time with the glue up. My problem is I don't have access to my shop or a space that I can heat easily. I am planning on adding a light percentage of fish glue to my mixture to extend working time slightly but I haven't even settled on a wrapping method yet.

I as going to do either c clamps or the rope method but without the tencik. Anyways, I figured there's no rush. I've also gotten sidetracked with projects. I'll share these soon.

I'll post some of the progress pics I have so far today.

I've really enjoyed seeing you folks projects and the experiments with horn bows, they are beautiful. Thanks for the input. I'll reach out likely with some questions.

Ya a cold shop is not what you want for horn bow builds.  I mainly do mine in the house for the horn and sinew parts.  Ill use a heat lamp aimed at my work as it will help keep the surfaces warm to slow the gel time down a bit.  for sinew glue up i use 30%. ratio.  20% hide/sinew glue and 10% sturgeon bladder glue.  the horn glue up is full sturgeon glue.  I find this combo the best for me.  as for the tencik i do not enjoy it at all and find it twists the limbs pretty bad and although it binds the horn well its just not my prefered method.  Ive used the c clamp method a number of times and like adam mentions in his book i made a fabric sled of sorts to hold a series of small wood blocks to clamp down on which has worked well.  hand clamps could work well too.  I now use a yumi method. its a series of mini wedges hammered under rope thats been used to wrap the horn onto the core.  the wedges as then pushed in under the rope creating tension and good squeeze out.  Ive seen others on line use this method also with good results.  i love it because it keeps everything nice and straight.  see my horn build x2 post and youll see me demonstrate this method.   

Ok so I think I’m done with this bow.  I got it all finished up the way I like.  The video link below shows the bow in better lighting.  I’ll post some pics here too.  I lost my white string material somewhere on the big move.  I’ll have to order some and study up on Korean bow strings.  I will do a full draw pic upload in few more weeks as I introduced some moisture into the bow for sure when getting the birch bark applied.  If you look back in previous pics and video clips on the progress build of the bow you’ll get and idea of the bend.  Thanks for watching and following along on this one. 

Video link

https://youtu.be/QlySIfZ2-yU?si=kiVjp2cg6bQAE43n

The tips are wrapped heavy with sinew around, over and below the nock. I was thinking about shrinking a rawhide sock over them too. Hopefully they'll hold up.

You are right. I've been harvesting small bits of ERC in the area for those quivers and what I have in the build here is definitely Western red cedar. I realize that this changes the potential for it to become a successful bow by a fair margin, so fingers crossed here!
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It does look like western red cedar that we use for cedar fences.  If that's what it is be careful with the grain.  You can split it from end to end very easily as it follows the grain.  It would be bad to have it split at the nocks.  I would definitely put overlays, and maybe even an underlay on the tips.