Ozbow

G'day gang

Just roughed out a bow today from a short stave I had that didn't look very promising.
Turned out a bit better than expected, however when looking at it profile it is very wavy so should be an interesting challenge, I'm also leaving this knot in as it should look pretty cool when she's all finished, I'm thinking about backing her with some snake skin hide, does anyone know if I'd run into any dramas with customs for ordering some in?

Cheers

Bow is 41" long

I spoke to Customs etc. about two years ago and it was a definite No.

From memory you can blame King Paul the Humble for this situation.

The imitation look a like may be a little bit difficult to glue to an uneven surface.

Daryl.

the 'faux' snake skin from 3 rivers is ok, just wont come up with a glossy finish. Tite bond 3 is excellent for applying. My approach is to put a coat on back of bow and allow to dry and then after applying another liberal coat to skin apply to bow, smoothing as you go. With a straight surfaced glass bow, there is no need to use any form of wrapping or such to smooth it down as it is done during application, checking progressively until it is all completed.Also with the poor exchange rate you will cop a flogging!. They are now about $23 US each , but with around the same for shipping and visa charge, My 2 cost $95 for the pair! If you do get some make sure you glue the skin slightly over the edges and then use a very sharp knife to trim with. I run a thin bead of CA glue [superglue] ahead of the cut which ensured perfect adhesion on the edges.

Cheers for the advice gentleman .....jeez they came up a treat on that bow bob!
Ill get the bow tillered out first n see how she goes, im tempted to heat in some recurves and make her bend through the handle, should be good.

Wish me luck

Cheers
Cameron

Forgot to mention too Cam, if you do use them it goes without saying to rough the glass surface before gluing.

Just curious, do you make bows in the 66 to 68 inch range?

Daryl.

bigbob wrote:Forgot to mention too Cam, if you do use them it goes without saying to rough the glass surface before gluing.

Cheers bob, shouldn't be an issue though

greybeard wrote:Just curious, do you make bows in the 66 to 68 inch range?

Yea have done a few times Daryl, from memory they were made from red oak, one had a beautiful lenticular limb shape but was still short of the 66"-68" range....I think it was only 62" but im not sure as I gave it to a mate

Not for many years not, but I used to play around with the Plains Indians type bow which had very slight shoulders a la Holmegaard at about 6 inches back from the tips and a 'waisted' handle section with barely enough thickness to keep the outer limbs bending circularly. This one of yours reminds me of those I made back then, but mine were usually just over 50 inches.

I used dry heat to impart the double curve of these bows - pulling the whole stave into a good 8 inches of reflex then deflexing the out half of the limbs until they were straight. The heavy deflex in the outer limb seems to be the reason why these little bows took a very definite circular bend when drawn by pulling out the reflexed centre section which went through the handle. It is an unexpected shape to take when you consider the side profile of the of the braced and unbraced bow.

I have a book at home describing the way that the Omaha people of the Northern Plains made their bows which was pretty much the same width profile right through the Great Plains from Canada to Mexico used by the horse Indians, except for their horn bows.

The other feature even on such short bows was that they had the centre of the handle significantly below the centre of the bow giving a slight Yumi tiller. When I made my Plains bows, I copied the style and they were surprisingly comfortable to shoot albeit had a very short draw of course.

Osage was highly prized and traded right up into Canada from the Kiowa and Comanche Indians of the southern plains, but the northern tribes tended to use White Ash most commonly and coppiced dogwood for arrow shafts.

cmoore wrote:

bigbob wrote:Forgot to mention too Cam, if you do use them it goes without saying to rough the glass surface before gluing.

Cheers bob, shouldn't be an issue though

greybeard wrote:Just curious, do you make bows in the 66 to 68 inch range?

Yea have done a few times Daryl, from memory they were made from red oak, one had a beautiful lenticular limb shape but was still short of the 66"-68" range....I think it was only 62" but im not sure as I gave it to a mate

Duh just another brain fade from me. Well you might turn it into a glass backed selfie! : roll:

Hi Cameron,

Whilst searching the internet I found the following;

http://www.agriculture.gov.au/SiteColle ... arch09.pdf

Item 4 is of interest, although the article was published in 2009 no action was taken regarding the snake because it was a 'farmed' non endangered species.

If you are after snake skins the ones from 3 Rivers may be acceptable, but do the checks with Biosecurity first.

Daryl.

As a generality, if the species in not on an endangered list and they have been processed,ie tanned, and are not raw unprocessed skins, they should be OK. It is the same with staves coming in from overseas too.

Howdy fellow bowyers and crafty, talented & wise people

Thanks all for your info on the snake skins

Here's progress on the new bow. I have retired the long string and braced her up at 4" and so far drawn her to 14",
I am aiming for around an 18" of draw out of this one which may be pushing it due to the irregularaties of the stave as you can see in the unbraced photo.
At this stage i'm thinking I need to get a little more mid limb bend if i'm going to eek out an 18" draw.

This increase in mid limb bend may also be a little hard to achieve in the right hand limb as that's where the knot is situated

Alright just did a bit more work tillering, here she is facing the other way now (knotty limb now left hand side) and now at 17" of draw length.......

The question I have is ... if I recurve the tips now, will it affect the tiller in any way?

I think if you're looking for more bend, you could get a bit more towards the tips. The last 8 inches or so seem to be quite stiff. It's looking good though.

Normally I'd let our more knowledgeable gurus make the expert comments, but I think most of them are away enjoying themselves at Wisemans this weekend.

cmoore,

Here is my analysis of your tiller job. My suggestion would be to put more bend into the middle rather than the outer limbs in this case. My reason is that if you put more bend in the outer limbs in such a short bow, there is more risk of the string departing the bow. However, if you relieve the middle such that the red chord touches the limbs similarly to the outer two chords, you will have enough bend to keep the limb loads well distributed. Even though there will be a significant 'felt' bend through the handle when drawn, unlike and ELB which has more limb mass, there will not be any significant hand shock if there is any at all.

Note too, that the left limb has a much greater degree of bending than the right hand limb. A below centre grip position and a bit more relief in that area as above will correct that and get you a bit longer draw.

Thanks for your advice gents,
im definitely going to increase the amount of mid limb bend, my other burning question is would recurving the tips affect the tiller at all?

cmoore,

Recurving the tips does 3 things on short bows -

1. They reduce the amount of working limb because they are static;
2. They increase the draw weight;
3. They prevent the string leaving the bow on very short bows.

They do not upset tiller in any way.

Mick Smith wrote:I think if you're looking for more bend, you could get a bit more towards the tips. The last 8 inches or so seem to be quite stiff. It's looking good though......

Soften the last 8 inches too much and you run the risk of increasing the limb to string angle to 90 degrees or more which could result in stack.

cmoore wrote:The question I have is ... if I recurve the tips now, will it affect the tiller in any way?....

Dennis La Varenne wrote:cmoore,

Recurving the tips does 3 things on short bows -

1. They reduce the amount of working limb because they are static;
2. They increase the draw weight;
3. They prevent the string leaving the bow on very short bows.

They do not upset tiller in any way.

My first concern would be the integrity of the timber around the knot.

Having static tips will help you maintain a lower limb tip to string angle. Depending on the quality of the Osage you may be able to increase the draw length of the bow.

Although the draw weight will increase removing material from the belly will reduce the draw weight if required.

No need to worry about the string leaving the bow.

Daryl.