Ozbow

White Oak backed White Cypress Laminate Bow. Ironbark core, Red Gum & White Cypress riser, White Cypress tip wedges and Red Gum nocks. 62" ntn with a 14" riser and 12" tip wedges. Currently drawing 40#@26", I'm yet to draw to 28" but I believe it will go to 30" eventually.

This is the third bow off of this form and the first of any real draw weight. It's the last of a large order of bows I'm sending off to the UK, hopefully this Monday coming. The previous bows were Hickory & Red Oak backed, I was encouraged to try White Oak after months of email conversations with Yeoman Dave & his success with it. He describes this bow shape as my 'movie bow', which I take as a compliment With all those curves, she is kinda pretty.

Unfinished at present but I would appreciate some feedback on the tiller before I get into the long process of prettying her up.

look great to me , nice bow!!

Nice looking little bow mate! Very nice curves.

How does it shoot?

Personally I would have got the outer limbs just inside the recurve working a little more so the timber at the fades was bending a little less but that's just me.

Colin

The tiller looks fairly good to the eye.

With wooden bows I believe the best way to check for correct tiller is to loose numerous arrows and evaluate how the bow behaved in the hand with each arrow. If it kicks and carries on the tiller may need adjustment.

The tiller in wooden bows can change depending on the way different archers hold the bow: i.e. open hand and pivot point or heeling the bow.

I had a self bow go into negative tiller because the archer ‘heeled’ the bow.

Daryl.

Thanks for the feedback. I thought the right limb might've needed a bit of a sand but it's probably just that the bow is at an angle to the tillering stick.

hunterguy1991 wrote:How does it shoot?

Personally I would have got the outer limbs just inside the recurve working a little more so the timber at the fades was bending a little less but that's just me.

Not put any arrows through it yet but I'm hoping for big things! The string angle looks to be fairly shallow throughout the drawn, it'll be interesting to shoot. The total taper rate is 0.004, so I'd hoped it would bend fairly far from the fades. I've just done up a 3/16" over 1m taper sled, so I'll be giving that a spin soon.

I'll post the finished pictures when I get there!

That would have to be one of the most orignal looking & prettiest bows I have seen for awhile!...10/10

That's really nice work there man, just love the curves.

Rob.

very nice

Thanks for the kind words!

I was shooting her in today and disaster struck - a splinter lifted on the back.
I've glued it back down but am unsure how this might fare into the future, aside from proving Colin right (again).

Any thoughts? The next one off of this form will be backed with Hickory, so here's hoping it will be just that tiny bit tougher.

Nice bow Nezwin. The 'movie bow' comment was intended as a compliment so I'm glad you took it as such.

Pity about the splinter. Hopefully gluing it down does the trick. Like Colin, I'd say a little more bend in the outer half would be good.

I had a bow with a splinter on the back. I glued it down but didn't trust it, so I wrapped it with thread too. Of course that looked a little odd, so I wrapped the opposite limb in the same place too. I called them 'barbarian wraps', and in its on way it looked a bit like a movie bow too.

Rally nice looking bow – its fine looking like a movie bow - even better as it really works…
Hope the fix works.

I put a few arrows through her this evening and another splinter lifted, on the lower limb this time. It took a piece of the core with it this time, so I'm writing it off to experience and will get back to the drawing board.

The next one will be posted for comment!

Was the second splinter in the same place on the opposite limb?

Almost, about 3-4" further from the riser. It might be a design flaw, or it may have been a chink in the grain where I knocked the bow off the bench in the workshop.

Next bow is going to have shorter tip wedges and a greater taper (3/16" over 1m as opposed to 0.002" over 1m) so the loading should be better spread across the limb.

The bow looks great Nezwin. A+ for aesthetics. Mechanically the design had me worried as the tip wedges transfer work to the inner limb that already takes the lions share of the stress. Perhaps consider building the bow without tip wedges, as the stress is inherently low close to the tip due to the short lever arm the force has over it. The greater taper rate will help the cause as well. Even with composite bows I consider trying to get as much limb working as possible.

I have often thought of building laminated bows in my forms for composite bows, but without fibreglass and using a reliable backing material instead. What did you use on the belly of the bow?

Keep up the good work mate, it is inspirational.

Cheers... Rod

rodlonq wrote:The bow looks great Nezwin. A+ for aesthetics. Mechanically the design had me worried as the tip wedges transfer work to the inner limb that already takes the lions share of the stress. Perhaps consider building the bow without tip wedges, as the stress is inherently low close to the tip due to the short lever arm the force has over it. The greater taper rate will help the cause as well. Even with composite bows I consider trying to get as much limb working as possible.

I have often thought of building laminated bows in my forms for composite bows, but without fibreglass and using a reliable backing material instead. What did you use on the belly of the bow?

Keep up the good work mate, it is inspirational.

Cheers... Rod

Thanks for the feedback, Rod.

Belly was White Cypress, a beautiful piece with a mix of heartwood & sapwood. That in itself might have negatively impacted the characteristics of the bow.

I had considered the bow without tip wedges but it doesn't have a terrific amount of recurve and, at 62" ntn, I wanted to make sure the string angle remains as shallow as possible. I've also found that working recurves on natural material bows tend to pull out over time, so keeping it static should limit that.

It'll be interesting to see how this next try turns out. It's been a while since I made a D/R style, I've got some nice bits of Elm that might do well in that kind of bow.