Help!! Cracked Bow

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sylakone
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:10 pm

Help!! Cracked Bow

#1 Post by sylakone » Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:46 pm

Hi Guys

I have almost finished my first homemade Longbow.
I have made it our of Merbau wood and backed it with fibreglass.
Unfortunately after a few shots and then trying to measure it's draw weight again on a tilliering tree I heard a crack!! :(
After inspection of the bow I found that the wood had cracked under the fibreglass so yay the fibre back did its job.
Now I was wondering is it a throw away now or is there a way I can repair it so I dont have to worry about the crack like wrapping around the area?

Any ideas would greatly be appreciated.

Cheers

Sy
Cheers

Sy

hunterguy1991
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Location: Woodford Queensland

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#2 Post by hunterguy1991 » Sat Feb 21, 2015 4:53 pm

Can you post some photos of the bow and failure.

Unfortunately that one is probably only good for fire wood now.

Merbau is not the greatest timber for bows as it has quite a short grain. Better off getting yourself some Spotted Gum decking timber or a Red Oak board from masters to use for the first few as you are learning and backing it with Jute or Linen for some safety.

Colin

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cmoore
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Location: Melbourne VIC

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#3 Post by cmoore » Sat Feb 21, 2015 8:27 pm

Hi sylakone,

Sorry to hear about the crack, pictures and bow dimensions would be really good to aid in a diagnosis of what went wrong.
I too have a bow made from Merbau (a flat bow) and it's backed with dog bone raw hide, the bow is 50" from tip to tip and weighs in at 38# @ 18" ... has had a few hundred shots through it and seems to be holding up fine although it does have a bit of hand shock but this is probably due to the fact that it is quite wide throughout its entire length. Here are a few pics I just took. please excuse the toplessness as it's quite a warm evening here :oops:
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Set Happens

sylakone
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#4 Post by sylakone » Sat Feb 21, 2015 10:34 pm

Hi Guys here you go

The Dimension are 35# at 24" draw 70" nock- nock 1.5" wide.
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I am thinking of supergluing the crack and binding it with some serving string.

What do you think or do you have a better idea?
You can see that the fibreglass has held the splinter but will give sooner than later.

Thanks

Sy
Cheers

Sy

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cmoore
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Location: Melbourne VIC

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#5 Post by cmoore » Sat Feb 21, 2015 10:47 pm

It's hard to tell from the pics but it looks to me as if the fibreglass has delaminated from the wood? I'm having trouble seeing the splinter :think: ....what does that area look like at full draw?. That's a good job on the bow to :smile:
Set Happens

sylakone
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#6 Post by sylakone » Sat Feb 21, 2015 11:17 pm

Thanks from what I can see you might see it in the third photo there is a definite crack at the grain runoff and when drawn that splinter has lifted the glass.

I was thinking of either super glue or maybe even some more fibre resin and see if I can base the lifted glass again but not sure if I can get under the lifted glass.
I will get a another photo tomoz as my wife is asleep so difficult to get a photo while full drawn lol

Cheers

Sy
Cheers

Sy

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perry
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Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#7 Post by perry » Sun Feb 22, 2015 9:32 am

At a guess you may have clamped the Bow too tightly and squeezed out the Glue. You could brace the Bow to open the Crack and lifted Glass and dribble Super Glue into it, unbrace it and clamp it firmly but not tight but I think you are spending good money after Bad.

I'd start again with a better Timber and revised design. Check out Jeffs Bamboo Longbow Buildalong http://www.ozbow.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2534 lots of good info there for the beginning Bow Builder.

IMO Fiberglass is a poor backing for a Timber Bow, it is very strong in compression and will overpower the Belly of the Bow. You could salvage the Fibreglass if you a exceedingly careful and use it as a Belly Lamination. I have seen Bamboo Backed Fibreglass Belly Bows that shoot beautifully but never a Fibreglass Belly Lamination on a Timber Bow, cant see why with the right Timber Choice and design it would not work. Fibreglass is absolutely not required for reliability.

Have a poke around this Forum, lots of Bow Building info, form a clear image of the Bow Design, Timber etc and ask lots of questions along the way

regards Jacko
"To my deep morticication my father once said to me, 'You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.' "

- Charles Darwin

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Nezwin
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Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#8 Post by Nezwin » Sun Feb 22, 2015 1:49 pm

It looks like it's fibreglass cloth applied directly to the back, so it's not worth salvaging - you're looking at about $4 in materials. It's not fibreglass in the prepreg, tensioned Gordons lam style.

Merbau isn't the best, as already stated (although cmoore seems to have had a win), and it looks like you could do with a bit of tillering practice. You'll find that as you improve at tillering your bows will fail less often, the forces being better distributed across the entire working limb length.

The traditional approach to save a failure like this is a wrap of some kind but as Perry said, it's probably throwing good money after bad. If you do want to go ahead with it though, you could soak some fibreglass threads in resin and wrap with that, or you could wrap an entire width of cloth around that area, matching on the alternate limb to keep limb balance. HunterGuyColin has the right of it in advising you have a go at using Red Oak or Spotted Gum, both being far more forgiving of learners mistakes/errors.

But I would say goodonya! Not a perfect bow but a good, solid effort for a first try. Give it a few more boards and more hours making sawdust you'll pick a whole lot up and will be knocking out great bows in no time.

sylakone
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#9 Post by sylakone » Sun Feb 22, 2015 8:19 pm

Thanks for the ideas. This was my eighth bow. It's the first one I made to actually shooting arrows with good draw weight. I already have a piece of spotted gum which is planned for my next bow plus I have another red oak floorboard to try again my first red oak floor board bow chrysalled then snapped while I was tillering. I will still like to try something like wrapping the crack how you suggested.

Thanks
Cheers

Sy

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Nezwin
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Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#10 Post by Nezwin » Mon Feb 23, 2015 1:27 pm

It sounds like you're having some problem tillering. I didn't get the 'feel' for it until I worked alongside much, much better bowyers who showed me in person how it was done. Same with flemish twist strings. But learning in person might just be a me thing.

There are much more qualified individuals on the board to attest to this, but my understanding of tillering is to spread the bending work as equally across the length of the limb as possible. Compare this tillering job against yours -
RO Static Tip Board.jpg
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This is by no means a 'perfect' tiller (Although the angle of the shot does make it seem like the bottom limb is bending too much) but you can see it's bending far closer to the fades than yours. This bow has parallel width limbs for 4" past the fades from where it linearly tapers to 0.5" at the tips. It didn't need a lot of tillering work as the limb width profiles did most of it for me. It could pay off to find someone who can show you how they tiller their bows, I know it helped me.

Here's another mistake that I've noticed we both make - we're both guilty of overbuilding risers.
RO Board Trilam.jpg
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Please ignore the tiller on this - it was made from ground lams on a fibreglass bow form with the intention of learning if Red Oak boards could be processed into unbacked lam-style bows and to get a bit of practice in grinding fades in a trilam "sandwich" riser.

I've taken a look at the bows I've bought and often the flat section on the riser, where the hand actually engages the bow, is little more than 4" in many cases. For instance, on a Chekmate Crusader multilam there is an 18" riser with 7" fades either side. This results in a lighter, more elegant bow.

Anyway, good luck! Keep at it and you'll pick up new things with every build, even if you don't get a tremendous bow by the end of it.

sylakone
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#11 Post by sylakone » Sat Mar 07, 2015 6:27 pm

Well annoyingly and unexpectedly my bow broke in a completely different place than the problem area I showed you.
So weird.

It broke about 3 inches up from the bottom knock the complete opposite limb to the problem area I posted.

Oh well I have already started on another bow so hopefully I will have better luck with that I am using the rest of the merbau I have and I am going to back it with raw hide see if I have any better luck with that.

I also still have a piece of spotted gum I want to use too but I am not certain how I am going to plan the bow out on that piece yet.
So I will put it on the back burner for now.

I will use the left over merbau as a practice piece and see how I progress.
Cheers

Sy

Dennis La Varenne
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Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#12 Post by Dennis La Varenne » Mon Mar 09, 2015 9:19 pm

Sylakone,

I have lightened your picture in Photoshop and marked the split which is just above the red line. That split under the glass looks to me for all the world like it has resulted from shearing forces. I know nothing of Merbau because I have not used it (I think), but where the split has occurred (just above the red line places it where the neutral axis would be which is the only force you can get in this region.
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The split has occurred under the glass and forward of where the neutral axis would be in an all-wood bow, suggesting that the high tension resistance of the glass matting has brought the neutral axis forward, but the wood has moderate to low shearing resistance even though it eventually broke elsewhere.

Is the actual break in the lower limb of the same nature as that depicted? If so, it would sort of confirm my suspicion about this wood. To get around this issue, you would possibly need to make a bow from this stuff much wider again, but even so, I am not prepared to guarantee that this would reduce shearing forces.

If it IS a shearing problem, I don't think backing it with rawhide will help either. One of our engineers may be of assistance here.
Last edited by Dennis La Varenne on Tue Mar 10, 2015 5:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Dennis La Varénne

Have the courage to argue your beliefs with conviction, but the humility to accept that you may be wrong.

QVIS CVSTODIET IPSOS CVSTODES (Who polices the police?) - DECIMVS IVNIVS IVVENALIS (Juvenal) - Satire VI, lines 347–8

What is the difference between free enterprise capitalism and organised crime?

HOMO LVPVS HOMINIS - Man is his own predator.

sylakone
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Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#13 Post by sylakone » Tue Mar 10, 2015 12:13 am

Hi Dennis

I can look at putting up a photo of the fail the break was a clean snap not just a crack like the first one it also looks like a bad grain runoff was where the fail happened.
This was a standard long bow design with a shallow d shaped belly so it had the full taper from the handle to the tip.
The new one I am making is of the molgabet design so it has a much wider working limb that is also uniform I have not tapered the working limb at all on the new bow.
I am hoping by using that design it will be as you said much wider and better for this kind of wood.
Cheers

Sy

Dennis La Varenne
Posts: 1776
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Location: Tocumwal, NSW. Australia

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#14 Post by Dennis La Varenne » Tue Mar 10, 2015 5:07 pm

I have just posted that pic I was speaking about in my last post. I had a bit of an alzheimer's moment and forgot to do it.

That actual second break sounds like it was from a fault in the wood itself more than the usual tension or compression fractures. However, the first break still sounds to me like a shearing stress fracture.

Making a bow a good bit wider should help with reduction of all the normal stresses, but also if you keep the belly as flat as you possibly can to keep the stresses spread over as wide a surface as you can.

Trapezoiding the limbs will help distribute those stresses better between back and belly even further.
Dennis La Varénne

Have the courage to argue your beliefs with conviction, but the humility to accept that you may be wrong.

QVIS CVSTODIET IPSOS CVSTODES (Who polices the police?) - DECIMVS IVNIVS IVVENALIS (Juvenal) - Satire VI, lines 347–8

What is the difference between free enterprise capitalism and organised crime?

HOMO LVPVS HOMINIS - Man is his own predator.

sylakone
Posts: 19
Joined: Fri Feb 20, 2015 1:10 pm

Re: Help!! Cracked Bow

#15 Post by sylakone » Thu Mar 12, 2015 9:08 pm

Well unfortunately the molgabet I was working on with the merbau wood cracked at the handle fade when I got to half brace I was exercising the limb when the fail happened :(
It cracked where the Raw hide ended I had only put raw hide from the outside fade to the inside fade. on each limb so the working limb and the fades where backed with the rawhide.

Well that's it for Merbau I won't be using it again.
I will now make an ELB out of some bamboo flooring I managed to get then I will make a molgabet out of the spotted gum.
I might also look at making a molgabet or pyramid bow out of the red oak floor boards I have.

Hopefully i will get a working bow out of these three builds.

Damn frustrating.

Oh well I'll keep learning and making dust.
Cheers

Sy

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