Red Oak Board Bow Buildalong

[smj]

Hey, looking at your pics - I am on dial up and it is really slow tonight - I'd say you have good feel for what you want. One thing I found is that you want a bow that fits comfortable in the hand for a long period of time. Square edges tend to grate the nerves after a few hours of holding the bow. My first bow I like a lot, and still have. However, every time I take it out I swear to myself that I am going to thin certain parts of the grip so that it feels better in my hand. Then once I get home, I think that I'd never get the finish to match just right, and I leave it alone. Make it comfy in the hand up front, you won't regret it later! Your bow, your hand, make'em fit together!!!

[Coca Cola]

I understand what you are saying about the rounded rest but sounds like alot of work. I think I will do that on my next bow. I took your advice and kinda reshaped handle. Its rounder, but not really any more contoured. I also started to sand the whole bow. I will get pics up later.

[Coca Cola]

Ok A good way to describe what you are saying is to have the shape of an airplane wing ( cross section) right? anyway......






Ok finished sanding the bow. Soft as a babies bottom. Feels great. Unfortunately some of the pen marks are too deep to remove so they will be there forever .

I shot the bow today and all I have to say was Yeeeeeeaaaaooooowww. Man my wrist hurt. I made the brace larger by twisting the string. I only got to shoot two arrows because it is blowing snow in Michigan right now. When I made the brace height larger the draw weight seemingly got higher. Which kinda stinks but I will survive.

[Coca Cola]

I shot it some more today and there was less wrist slap with the higher brace height. It has some handshock. Its managable though. One thing that thourghly dissapointed me was the stack. The last inch felt awful I think it went from 3# at 26" to 42# at 27". Is there an explanation for this?

I consider this a done buildalong. Maybe in a couple weeks I will start a Hickory backed Ipe buildalong.

I would also like to thank smj for all the help and bowtech for running a great site! Hopefully I will be able to contribute more.

[2chucks2]

OK. I gotta make one now. I saw this same sort of thing a few months ago where the builder made his oak bow and backed it with drywall tape and then painted the drywall tape blue. Is this where you got your info??? It looks great. I was thinking of using the drywall tape and then rawhide from a deer to cover the tape.

[smj]

Hey 2chucks2 - if you are going to use rawhide to back the bow, I don't think I'd mess with drywall tape... The rawhide should be fine by itself, although linen underneath might be interesting (not much give in linen). Still, you shouldn't need anything else. If you'd like some input on glue I'd be happy to offer my 2 cents - which seems to be about all I can get in these days! My daughter made a volleyball team out here and I seem to spend my entire life either going to, at, or thinking about volleyball tournements these days! (I sure hope they don't play volleyball in September!) Anyway, let me know if I can help in any way. (You might think about hickory or pecan as the board you use, rather than red oak. I feel as though I get a better cast with hickory/pecan. The last hickory board I bought was 6x0.75x72 inches and around $14. I got two bows out of it, the other section had some swirl I didn't like.)

[Coca Cola]

2chucks2 said:

OK. I gotta make one now. I saw this same sort of thing a few months ago where the builder made his oak bow and backed it with drywall tape and then painted the drywall tape blue. Is this where you got your info??? It looks great. I was thinking of using the drywall tape and then rawhide from a deer to cover the tape.

Yes

www.geocities.com/salampsio/oak.htm

I think its a great tutorial. Although I dont think you need one, with smj here.

[BT]

Have you been able to work out the stack yet C.C. ?

[Coca Cola]

admin said:

Have you been able to work out the stack yet C.C. ?

No I really dont know how.

[smj]

Stack - draw the bow back fully and have someone take a photo from the side. How long is the bow again, nock to nock? Typically, you get stack when the string angle hits 90 degrees to the bow limb when drawn. So, pull that puppy back to full draw, get a photo from the side, and post it. Or at the least pull it back and have someone measure the angle between the string and limb. I shoot a long draw length, 31.5 inches, I tend to make longer bows out at the 68 inches nock to nock length, and have not had stack issues yet. The bow that I broke the tip on is probably going to come in around 65 inches or so - if I can ever get time to work on it! - and I will set a max draw length of 28 inches. (I will only shoot 28 inch arrows out of it to make sure!) I think it was in one of the Bowyers Bibles where there is a write up on stack, this was the conclusion they found as well. If this is not what you are finding, I'd like to know about and see if we can figure it out!