Teasers

Just a teaser so all four people who read this blog know I haven't died.

Something new for you guys

The unfinished hickory stave is shootable. I had to make a project for a class, so I figured I'd kill two birds with a single stone. Here's the bow shooting in the form of a small advertisement:

Pretty bad, I know, but I needed the grade and it was due at 3:00 today.

Same old story

Well, progress has been as slow as usual. I have gotten the Hickory stave to the roughly tillered stage, and plan on doing some fun things with this bow. However, while I wait for my finishing materials to arrive for the stave, I think I may knock out a flat bellied English Longbow or some such to keep me occupied. That'll be a nice project to work on until I can make further progress on the hickory stave.

And now, for something completely different.

I'm going to start off the new year right, with some actual archery.

I've done a little work on the hickory stave, but that book my friend gave me has been distracting me. It's actually incredibly interesting. It inspired me to do a little bit of PVC bowyering, and it paid off. I'm going to list this as the short, siyahed recurve from the votes :) This bow is based off of the old Mongolian recurve bows of the steppes. In the spirit of its ancestry, I named it Genghis Khan. It was quick, easy, and cheap to make, and shoots pretty straight for a bow that probably should never have been made.

Pictured with a 30" Carbon Express Terminator 4560 for size comparison.

Full draw from the left.

Full draw from the right.

I braced it with a 41" string, giving it a brace height of 8 3/4 inches! That, combined with the non-existent early draw weight make this bow fairly accurate given its short length. It only pulls 45 pounds at 28 inches, so it's not quite at the stage where it's up to hunting power (PVC bows shoot about 10 pounds slower than an equivalent wooden bow), but I wouldn't want to stand in front of it, that's for sure.

It's got some pretty severe stack (just look at that string angle!) but the light let-off at the end definitely helps the accuracy, and it's so easy to brace a child could do it. The nocks and handle are wrapped in electrical tape, the paint is just Krylon spray paint, finished with satin Deft for durability. It's fun to shoot, but it's going to a friend, the same friend who gave me the book on making bows from PVC. I'm sure he'll enjoy it.

EDIT: I was shooting this bow, and when I aimed a tad off, the arrow hit a cinder block and chipped a 1 inch section off of it. Yeah, it's got some power to it :)

I said I'd have pictures...

...and I wasn't lying. It's not much, but with winter break and a new purpose for the bow, I think I'm going to make some more progress on the hickory stave. As is, this is all the progress I've made in the last month or so.

 Here's my clamp job on the riser section in the handle. You may notice that A) the riser fades are already cut and B) they're rather dark. Well, I was using my school's bandsaw and it had a rather dull blade. Like cutting clay with your thumb. However, I did get it burnt cut out, which was more than I could have hoped to do in 3 hours with my current tools.

 The glue line.

 Here is is after I cleaned up the burned wood. The wood survived, and smelled quite nice :) I love working hickory, even if it destroys tools.

 

 I apologize for the blurriness of this shot, I think I'm using a potato attempting to pass for a camera. However, you can see in the shot that I had to remove limb wood in order to get a clean fade. It doesn't matter much, I'm going to be removing a lot more very soon.

 Just displaying the marks I'll be using to narrow the riser. It's an inch and a half wide and thick here, I'm going to narrow it down to an inch wide with plenty of thickness left to mess with arrow rests and contoured grips.

A quick shot of my feet and the freshly filed nock. I'll be cleaning it up a bit, but I think I'll just shoot for pin nocks later to help with the simplicity, rather than dealing with the stress of nock overlays. It should also help the FPS, just a tad.

 It's nearly invisible to the camera, but here you can see the handle, fades, and tips. I've used the school's bandsaw with a fresh blade to help cut out the riser at this point, and using files have taken all of the edges. This is where the stave is as of today, however, with plenty of time left to work with over break, I should be able to finish by January, but if not I'll be close.

I also mentioned that the bow now has fresh purpose as well. A friend of mine stopped by the other day, and through conversation she mentioned her father had broken her longbow a few months back. I offered to make a fresh one for her, and she was pleased. She shot an old lemonwood longbow, 35 lb at 27",  so I have some stats to shoot for. Hopefully, I'll have this bow ready for her before the new year.

On another note, a friend gave me a book called the Impossible Bow, by one Nicholas Tomihama. If anybody has not read it, I'll give a brief synopsis of what it's about: making bows cheaply and safely from PVC pipe. It fits my budget and will allow me to make some bows for some family members who've been asking. It will also finally allow me to get out and shoot a little again. 

Sorry, Life's keeping me busy.

Sorry about the lack of progress, school picked up recently so I'm up to my neck in projects and assignments that warrant more attention. However, I promise my next post will have something to show.

An (un)astounding lack of progress

I've only made a small amount of progress on my hickory stave, cutting the end fades to the tips and the fades for the handle riser. Also very unfortunately I neglected to take any pictures. I'll update as soon as I can with actual pictures, but for now all I can give you is the promise for more.