Well, she shoots.

[ichiban]

just hook the hook onto the string and a rope on the other end set up a pully and your golden

[longbow steve]

Hey Dave, Easter is the Archery ACT state field so there will be a few longbows and the rest will be modern equipment so dont get to excited .
Thought I would mention your draw Tom as when your start it is better to learn the correct way rather than try to break habits
Steve

[TomMcDonald]

Hey Dave, Easter is the Archery ACT state field so there will be a few longbows and the rest will be modern equipment so dont get to excited .
Thought I would mention your draw Tom as when your start it is better to learn the correct way rather than try to break habits
Steve

I know your intentions were good Longbow steve

[ichiban]

oh darn i was betting ready for battle, TAKE BACK THE RANGE BOYS CHARGE!!, ah well might be fun to go and see anyway.

Cheers.

[TomMcDonald]

Well I strung her up again and there is a crack that has developed on the back and has come up.
The good thing is, the linen has contained it. I've wrapped the heck outa it with gaffa tape and will do a more permanent repair job soon.

Got the fish scales you recommended and it measures a walloping 33#@28 inches. Not too bad and I reckon with a broadhead and a good arrow I reckon I can git me a rabbit.

[pdccr]

Thats still a good weight for a starters bow.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Tomalophicon,

You have done an outstanding job of your first bow I must say, and the tillering job is first rate. Its tiller conforms exactly to the front profile of the bow, being very much 'Holmegaardesque' an excellent tiller for a short bow like yours. The stiffer outer limbs will keep the string angle shallow, and you have plenty of wood where it bends most.

Pity about the wood turning traitor on you and raising a splinter, but your backing did exactly what backing was intended to do in a straight bow - keep splinters from breaking the bow.

My suggestion for a repair would be to strip the backing for access, clean up the back and use a very good industrial superglue like Loctite 406 to run into the wood under the splinter and press it down in place until it cures, then reback it the same way with perhaps one more layer of linen. That particular splinter will never raise again.

Just remember that having got the hang of it, heavier bows are only a matter of making the same bow thicker by a few poofteenths or of denser wood.

Unfortunately, we bowyers almost inevitably go through a stage of making some atrocious bows which fail miserably.

WE only fail if we don't figure out WHY. And, there are a lot of excellent bowyers on Ozbow who will help you keep failures to a minimum.

Keep up the excellent work, and remember that your 33lb bow will humanely kill almost any animal up to the size of smallish goats if you hit them right with a good broadheaded arrow from a sensible distance.

Dennis La Varenne

[TomMcDonald]

Dennis, thanks so much for your kind reply.
I love the Holmegaard design. I have a 70lb Hickory Holmegaard arriving sometime in May that should be fun.

About the repair. I'll get on to that when I can get some glue. It sounds reasonable and surely looks better than a big lump of Gaffer tape wrapped around the limb (besides, I'd probably be chucked outta the archery club - Ichiban )

I plan on making a heavier bow next. I'd like to aim for about 60lb. Glenn has suggested that rounding the back and belly will make it easier to tiller so I'll give it a shot. I reckon spotty gum will be the wood too as it's cheap and fairly easy to work with.

I'd love to work with a band saw. I cut this out entirely with an Arbortech angle grinder fitting and I dind't really like the gouges it left over.

Thanks again for your kind words.

[ichiban]

super glue works a treat when fixing splinters i have a 40lb silver top ash flat bow which raised a splinter on the back. i really didnt want to back this bow so i ran some some bondtite superglue into the crack and bound it with b-50 after a month or so (in which i shot it everyday) i removed the binding and hear we are a year later and its probably my favorite bow (due to its inch of string follow, its a pleasure to shoot) despite all its "problems" (worm holes and gum veins).

[TomMcDonald]

That's awesome.
I'll let y'all know how the repair job comes along.