Author Topic: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (Bad news pg 3)  (Read 5757 times)

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Offline Springbuck

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer
« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2018, 05:30:10 pm »
Greg, you know I just gave you that maple stave as a joke, right?  It's impossible!   JK!  You are off to a great start. 

  For the record. I did clean out a corner of the garage, giving him a lot of "seconds" I hadn't gotten to for a while.  But that maple bit was long-ish, clean, and solid.  It just had a lot of twist that started pretty close to the handle, which would be challenging to remove.

Greg, occasionally, after reducing a stave, I steam out a big curve or twist.  If it doesn't go away completely, it's diminished enough to crank it down to a form or board with C-clamps, and get the rest with belly  "toasting" dry heat.

Good luck!

Offline gfugal

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer
« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2018, 06:18:02 pm »
Greg, you know I just gave you that maple stave as a joke, right?  It's impossible!   JK!  You are off to a great start. 

  For the record. I did clean out a corner of the garage, giving him a lot of "seconds" I hadn't gotten to for a while.  But that maple bit was long-ish, clean, and solid.  It just had a lot of twist that started pretty close to the handle, which would be challenging to remove.

Greg, occasionally, after reducing a stave, I steam out a big curve or twist.  If it doesn't go away completely, it's diminished enough to crank it down to a form or board with C-clamps, and get the rest with belly  "toasting" dry heat.

Good luck!
Yes, it was a good stave! Thanks for it and the other ones you gave me! other than the ridiculous twists and a knot on the right near the recurve (you can see I'm leaving that part a little thicker) and a little pin knots here and there. It seemed like the stave of yours requiring the least work, so I could get one to Upstate as fast as possible (which isn't very fast for me). After many many tries I feel the twist is mostly gone and should be satisfactory, especially if I tiller it right. I heard a very faint tick when I was tillering it, and got nervous since it was on the side with the pin knots near the edge, so I decided to back it with Linen for extra security. I haven't heard anything yet, and it hasn't gotten any set, hopefully, it stays that way.
Greg,
No risk, no gain. Expand the mold and try new things.

Offline Springbuck

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer
« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2018, 11:02:44 pm »
OOOOH, sorry about the "tic"!  But that canyon maple is pretty good bow wood.  It's very tough, and decently hard.  It's hard to find a good stave without cutting a fairly large tree, but if you look around on a hike,  or can deal with a crook or knot, it makes bows.

Offline gfugal

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer
« Reply #18 on: February 08, 2018, 12:14:26 am »
OOOOH, sorry about the "tic"!  But that canyon maple is pretty good bow wood.  It's very tough, and decently hard.  It's hard to find a good stave without cutting a fairly large tree, but if you look around on a hike,  or can deal with a crook or knot, it makes bows.
I'll have to keep an eye out for it then. I've loved what I've worked on so far. It beets the two juniper bows, douglas fir, and red oak wood I've worked on that's for sure. Do you just get a permit to cut it down, or something? Also since the mountain in front of Timp is called mount mahagony, I'm guessing there's a considerable amount of Mountain Mahagony trees in the canyons. Have you ever used them before, i thought I read somwere that they make a decent bow.
Greg,
No risk, no gain. Expand the mold and try new things.

Offline Springbuck

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer
« Reply #19 on: February 08, 2018, 06:07:30 pm »
  Mountain mahogany should make some fantastic bows, but I tried and failed on the couple very marginal pieces I played with.  It's really scrubby, branches a ton, and had crooks and knots everywhere.

Up in the top north-east corner of Utah in a place called One Mile Canyon in the Sawtooth Mountains, where I used to hunt deer with a bow, I once saw a huge gully/canyon full of LARGE, tall mahoganies packed into a shaded low-lying area.  Many had been pushed down by snow and they were the biggest straightest trees I've ever seen anywhere of the species.  I have meant ever since to go find some staves up there, but I always have enough wood, little time, I hunt somewhere else now, and it's a three hour drive each way....... one of these days, I guess.

I wouldn't harvest much of anything off the open foothills on the Wasatch Front, but up the canyons there should be plenty of maple.  The Bountiful Peak loop has you driving by tons of it.  I confess I didn't get a permit, but I was in a wild back area and took one small tree from the middle of huge mile wide thickets of the stuff, and I've only done that a couple times.  They cut tons of it down as they clear lots for houses, along with the oakbrush. Sometimes when working on trees for money in the houses invading the foothills I get the maple.  So far that's all I have needed or used.

Offline gfugal

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer
« Reply #20 on: February 08, 2018, 11:53:54 pm »

I've got the bow braced. I'm worried a bit about being underweight, yet at the same time, I'm getting a bit of set (close to an inch). The reasons for this set has me baffled and I think I've narrowed it down to a couple of culprits. I don't think it's the design since it's nearly 68 inches long, a0bout 2 inches wide on average, and I haven't gotten near full draw yet. It's possible it's the wood, or some issue with humidity. But as attested by springbuck the wood should be good quality, and I believe so myself and I keep it in my house which fluctuates from 45-50% humidity. My guess is that it has something to do with my tillering. So here's my guesses of the main culprits and would ask for your advice on what you feel the issue is. 1) my tiller isn't distributed enough throughout the limb, with too much occurring in too little of a section. I'm going to post a picture of it at 18 inches later so you can see and judge accordingly. I already know that there are some issues with it, with the right limb, bending more out of the fades and being slightly weaker. Yet the set is more pronounced on the left side. Potential Issue 2) it occurs due to me leaving drawn too long. My current tillering process has me string it on the tillering stick, set it down on the tile grid, and take a picture. I try to go as fast as possible, but It probably takes at least 30 seconds but no more than a minute. I also left it braced for quite a while when I first got it there, to measure it's bend and limb distance from the string. The 3rd) possibility that I'm getting more and more curious about is whether my belly shape has to do with it. Like I said it's about 2 inches wide, but not only that I tiller pretty flat, without rounding the belly much at all so it's almost rectangular in cross-section. It makes sense to me that it would reduce stress on the center fibers that way, but maybe there's more to it than that. Almost every other person's bow I see on here has thicker limbs, whereas mine is only about a quarter inch thick. Is having such thin and wide limbs causing some unknown problem? Anyway, let me know what you think. I've been trying to follow the no set tillering method and have never drawn it more than 40 lbs. Here's the picture I said I would include.

« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 11:40:49 am by gfugal »
Greg,
No risk, no gain. Expand the mold and try new things.

Offline stuckinthemud

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #21 on: February 09, 2018, 05:21:51 am »
Hi Greg, I don't have the experience to answer your questions, although I think I might try to get the right limb bending a little more, but hopefully someone who knows what they're doing will chime in

Offline PEARL DRUMS

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #22 on: February 09, 2018, 07:42:13 am »
That right limb is quite flat 4" off the fade. Maple is maple, don't expect minimum set.
Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.

Online Badger

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #23 on: February 09, 2018, 09:29:54 am »
   How much mass weight does that bow have? I figured with a 30" draw and 5" of reflex you might want about 22 to 23 oz mass weight.

Offline Springbuck

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #24 on: February 09, 2018, 03:40:19 pm »
Yeah, white woods will take some set, and I expect it, but if you are sure you haven't pulled it harder than 40 lbs, or all at once, and you kept 2" wide, that seems like it is taking set early-ish.

Have you tempered the belly yet? 

A flat belly and near rectangle cross section should be the best for distributing strain, but remember that stave had some twist and lumps. The crown is on the medium-low end and shouldn't be an issue.   Check that the limbs are even thickness side to side, though, and that the flat belly is 90 degrees to the top of the crown.  Easy to overlook. Usually you will see twist or side-leaning tips when strung if this happens, but sometimes not.  The crown may try to wander side to side and you have to follow it on the belly, or you can leave one side of the limb overstrained.

As long as you are sure you are not pulling it past the 40 lb, leaving it a few seconds on the tree shouldn't hurt.  Pulling it 42 lbs, and too far by an inch will.

Offline PatM

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #25 on: February 09, 2018, 03:51:39 pm »
Tempering a bow that has already ticked and been backed seems like a bad idea.

Offline Springbuck

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #26 on: February 09, 2018, 05:45:18 pm »
 Oh, yes, I forgot!  Good catch.   O:) :-[  If it was me, I'd have looked everywhere for that "tick".

  I also just remembered to look at your un-braced pic.  The fact that you have both reflex and recurves may be part of it.  Double check.  The bow should be bending most where it is widest, but if it reflexes off the handle it's easy to ask too much of the inner limbs..

Offline Springbuck

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #27 on: February 09, 2018, 05:56:16 pm »
Try this.    :P :P ;D  Right limb is bending an inch (or more) farther than the left.  Like Pearl said the RT limb is flat off the fades for several inches, and compensating from there out.
« Last Edit: February 09, 2018, 06:00:55 pm by Springbuck »

Offline gfugal

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #28 on: February 09, 2018, 07:07:48 pm »
Try this.    :P :P ;D  Right limb is bending an inch (or more) farther than the left.  Like Pearl said the RT limb is flat off the fades for several inches, and compensating from there out.


So red arrows mean remove wood, and yellow bending too much?
Greg,
No risk, no gain. Expand the mold and try new things.

Offline Springbuck

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Re: Bow for Upstatenybowyer (tiller advice needed pg 2)
« Reply #29 on: February 09, 2018, 09:03:29 pm »
Not exactly that straight-forward, but those are places to look at, to compare with the other limb for instance.

Yellow arrow on the RT limb: Pearldrums is right, the first few inches of limb off the fade is flat.  About where the red arrow is, it starts bending more than the other limb.  By the time you hit the next red arrows it looks to be flat.

Left limb is bending less than the right at the red arrow, but the bend profile looks more correct.  At the yellow arrow on the left, it looks just a tad soft, but only right there at the arrow.