A change in shooting

[CheddarMan]

Had a quick crack at carving a simple one today.
But didn't get far until it broke!

Never mind though been an enjoyable afternoon!

I think that is what happens if you don't understand how the stave works! A bow isn't something you can carve or make froma piece of wood, it has to be what a stave wants to give you. I have made a couple of bows in the past, and they don't end up looking like your broken one! Essentially you have tried to make a take-down recurve from one piece of wood and left yourself with, as you have noticed, no flex or bend or power left in the wood. When you make a bow from a piece of wood they don't finish up shaped like that, they finish up looking pretty much like the stick they started out life as!

Forget the over engineering of a piece of diried wood, go and cut a big straight, knot free limb, let it season then slowly, slowly, slowly shape and taper the limb each side of a middle point

[mick91]

I think that is what happens if you don't understand how the stave works! A bow isn't something you can carve or make froma piece of wood, it has to be what a stave wants to give you. I have made a couple of bows in the past, and they don't end up looking like your broken one! Essentially you have tried to make a take-down recurve from one piece of wood and left yourself with, as you have noticed, no flex or bend or power left in the wood. When you make a bow from a piece of wood they don't finish up shaped like that, they finish up looking pretty much like the stick they started out life as!

Forget the over engineering of a piece of diried wood, go and cut a big straight, knot free limb, let it season then slowly, slowly, slowly shape and taper the limb each side of a middle point

Cheers for the advice it was actually made from laminate. I have lots of strips of ash all between 1mm and 4mm thick. Think there where a few things I did wrong but hey ho its all a learning curve and I did like the pragmatic view on another website of "if you've never snapped a bow, that's because you've never tried to make one" haha. Looking at the shape of my effort the curve from riser to limb is way too steep I feel

[Woody]

Hi Mick, the tillering process is what takes the longest, but fair play for having a go!
I think the laminated approach is a good one too , keep trying , you'l get there in the end , I'm sure.
👍

[mick91]

Hi Mick, the tillering process is what takes the longest, but fair play for having a go!
I think the laminated approach is a good one too , keep trying , you'l get there in the end , I'm sure.
��

Tillering is what killed it I'm afraid! Too far and too fast. To be honest I have too many thin strips of ash for them to go for firewood (due to miscommunication with me and the man with the bandsaw!) so might as well do something productive I figured!

[Thumbcrusher]

maybe face it with lemonwood or something like that. what glue did you use? It could be the glue thats the problem. try cascamite glue to bond the strips and facing material then tightly bind it the whole length in an old bike innertubes pulled very tight until the glue dries.

[mick91]

maybe face it with lemonwood or something like that. what glue did you use? It could be the glue thats the problem. try cascamite glue to bond the strips and facing material then tightly bind it the whole length in an old bike innertubes pulled very tight until the glue dries.

Possibly an idea that facing it with something more flexible. Although it actually broke from the back. I used bostick waterproof carpentry glue (I have gallons of it) and it was only really intended as a proof of concept. Looking back there's quite a bit I did wrong. But all a valuable experience.