I wanted to show off the bow that I just sent out to my trade participant. This is a completely new design that I built just for this trade. I took my standard R/D longbow design and added more deflex mid limb along with adding more reflex in the tips. My goal was a more radical design that might show improvements over my R/D longbow which has been my best performer to date.
My glue up consisted of a bamboo back, osage powerlam, maple core, and an osage belly. I finished it off with a laminated black cherry riser that came from a tree off of my family farm.
The building of the bow went pretty well with only some tip alignment issues to deal with. I worked on both tips several times and was finally able to get them into pretty good alignment.
The bow finished out well and is a nice shooting bow. It is 63" NTN and draws 57# @ 28". The bow holds 1-1/4" of reflex and only takes 1/4" of set after a long shooting secession.
This bow has a different draw cycle compared to my R/D longbows. This design has a heavier preload and feels more like a static recurve than a R/D longbow. Speeds were 175 fps at 10 gpp which is on par with my R/D longbow.
The bamboo was finished with cordovan stain and the bow was coated with 8 coats of water based semi gloss spar finish. A deer leather grip and arrow rest finished it off. The string is the new X99 string material with B55 padded loops and beaver fur silencers.
I hope my recipient will enjoy this bow as much as I enjoyed building it.
Enjoy,
Taylor
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