Turkish learn-along

[MattZA]

Heh, bownarra. I just did a Google search.

Water buffalo horns go for between $80 and $100 for a pair. For my Gemsbok horn I pay $8.

It's for that reason that I'm willing to ask experimental questions and try different ways. Sure, 99.9% chance they'll fail. But at least I can say I've learned something for my next attempt.

I hope that doesn't come across the wrong way, by the way. I still very much appreciate your input, and obviously accept your patient answers to what must seem like ridiculous questions.

It's just when you're making one of these things for the first time, it's all-consuming. I'm always looking at it and asking a million questions in my head

[Deerhunter21]

theres sheep horn

h ttps://www.worldwidewildlifeproducts.com/store/pc/32-inches-Good-Quality-Large-Ram-Horn-for-Sale-Sheep-Horn-You-are-buying-this-one-for-33-99-66p4140.htm

h ttps://www.worldwidewildlifeproducts.com/store/pc/31-inches-Large-Nice-Quality-Ram-Horn-for-Sale-Sheep-Horn-You-are-buying-this-one-for-32-99-66p4141.htm

Theyre different links

[MattZA]

Here's an update photo. This was taken quickly at 4:30 this morning before going to work, so it's not exactly professional quality.

Nonetheless it gives an idea of the shape. Note, the back of the bow is covered in shadow, hence the dark line - it's not a horn backing, ha ha. I'll post more photos when I've cleaned it up, etc.

[JNystrom]

There is a guy in vietnam i buy my horns from and so does a lot of better, quite credited bowyers. You can get a readily cut and sanded horn strip for ~16 dollars. Shipping to Finland was something like 15 dollars + some extra for weight. Really cheap anyway. But most importantly top quality.

You can give me a private message if you or anyone else is interested.

Your bow shape looks ok, pretty mild so you will succeed for sure if you don't run into problems with your horns.

[MattZA]

Hi JNystrom,

I'll definitely keep that in mind if I'm looking.

I saw someone said somewhere that people tend to make their first horn bows with very mild reflex/recurves. It must be because the self bow maker in us tends to look at it and think there's no way it'll survive.

I imagine I'll get a decent bit more reflex when I place the sinew on the back.

[MattZA]

Question:

How should I build up the back ridge that gives the transition from a flat cross section to a triangular cross section to the tip cross section?

I'm thinking I have two options. I can either glue a narrow, thin piece on the back to kind of give the basic shape and then get the final shape with the sinew. OR I could leave the back flat and then use the sinew alone to build up that ridge on the back. Obviously the second option will use more sinew, but will it make any difference?

[JNystrom]

Well its surely really wise to start easy, no need to rush it with too complicated profiles. There is enough of problems with the materials and glue up anyway. You can still get a turkish boat-like shape with sinew curing and reflexin the bow. This reflex is easier to manipulate to your liking in the tiller process than some overly done wood core kasan bends as some beginners end up with.

For a 50-60 pound bow you would like to have about 7-8mm core thickness in the bending parts (sal) and 9-11mm thickness in the less bending parts (kasan ridge). So about 8mm next to handle, 10mm in the outer limbs. Nocks maybe 17mm.
These bending parts will get sinew and will beef up to 10mm in sal, 12mm in kasan. If you can do this without gluing any wood strips, i would suggest that. Its not that hard to build the ridge to the kasan even with sinew.
I would prefer the sinew over gluing extra pieces of wood.

I recommend to do some copycat work on DC:s measurements.

[bownarra]

Yes but you will waste a lot of 8 dollars.....don't try to reinvent the wheel all this has been done many times before and the consensus has been reached!
Water buffalo horn is not anywhere near that expensive. As Jere said there are lots of other suppliers that a standard google search will not bring up.
The kasan ridge should be shaped from the core wood. That is why the core is left 17mm thick or so at the start. Now your only option is to glue a strip of wood on here and then shape that.
Building it up with sinew is no good. Sinew has little resistance to stretch and so you would need to use a lot of it. Then there is the density, cured sinew/glue is about 1.3 s.g.  You would be adding a load of weight right where you don't want it.