Flatline opus 1&2 take-down recurve Build-a-long
Posted: Wed May 04, 2011 9:35 pm
About 18 months ago me mate Paul Mayall (the knife maker) and I were siting around drooling over some Conkerberry samples he had brought back from down Charters towers way and fantasizing about a bow made completely from this outstandingly beautiful timber.
I said 'Paul if we can find pieces long enough for the limbs I can make the bow'. So we planed a timber hunting trip. We spent 4 days searching the 8 square KM of land that was due to be cleared by the station owner (you are not allowed to cut this timber with out a permit) for all the useable Conkerberry we could find.
Now after milling the best lengths and seasoning them for the last 16 months I'm going to start this opus like project.
I'll be making 2 take-down MC2s (one for Paul and one for me) using a combonation of false Sandal wood and Conkerberry in the risers and all Conkerberry limbs.
Target weights are around 52-55# @ 28" for me and around 58-60# @ 28" for Paul. I have a 29'' draw and Paul has a 27" draw so in the end we will be drawing about the same weight.
I havn't used Conkerberry for limbs before (due to this I'll be starting with the lighter set of limbs and using core thickness figers on the heavy side so if they come out heavy they can be Pauls limbs) but it passes all of my gluing,bending and stress tests so far, now to try it in action in a bow.
I thought maybe you all might like to follow the progress and see how it's done in the Flatline shed.
This project could take quite a while cause I'm fairly busy at work and I'll be doing it between that and other bow orders.
Here's some pics of the timber I'll be starting with. (above) The riser material. I've sanded and coated a piece of the false Sandal wood so you can see what it will look like finished. At the moment the riser timber is about 14mm thick, 100mm wide and 530mm long.
(below) The limb material. I will have to splice and relaminate some of this to get fault free solid lams. As you can see it's hard to get large fault free bits of Conkerberry, this is the best, straightest and longest of the almost full trailer load we were lucky enough to harvest.
Whish me luck.
Rob
I said 'Paul if we can find pieces long enough for the limbs I can make the bow'. So we planed a timber hunting trip. We spent 4 days searching the 8 square KM of land that was due to be cleared by the station owner (you are not allowed to cut this timber with out a permit) for all the useable Conkerberry we could find.
Now after milling the best lengths and seasoning them for the last 16 months I'm going to start this opus like project.
I'll be making 2 take-down MC2s (one for Paul and one for me) using a combonation of false Sandal wood and Conkerberry in the risers and all Conkerberry limbs.
Target weights are around 52-55# @ 28" for me and around 58-60# @ 28" for Paul. I have a 29'' draw and Paul has a 27" draw so in the end we will be drawing about the same weight.
I havn't used Conkerberry for limbs before (due to this I'll be starting with the lighter set of limbs and using core thickness figers on the heavy side so if they come out heavy they can be Pauls limbs) but it passes all of my gluing,bending and stress tests so far, now to try it in action in a bow.
I thought maybe you all might like to follow the progress and see how it's done in the Flatline shed.
This project could take quite a while cause I'm fairly busy at work and I'll be doing it between that and other bow orders.
Here's some pics of the timber I'll be starting with. (above) The riser material. I've sanded and coated a piece of the false Sandal wood so you can see what it will look like finished. At the moment the riser timber is about 14mm thick, 100mm wide and 530mm long.
(below) The limb material. I will have to splice and relaminate some of this to get fault free solid lams. As you can see it's hard to get large fault free bits of Conkerberry, this is the best, straightest and longest of the almost full trailer load we were lucky enough to harvest.
Whish me luck.
Rob