Trad Gang
Main Boards => The Bowyer's Bench => Topic started by: Pheonixarcher on May 15, 2015, 04:38:00 AM
-
I was gonna wait until I got this bow finished before I posted, but I thought it might be a good idea to get some thoughts before all is said and done. The riser still needs final shaping and sanding, but the limbs are basically ready for finish. 14" black walnut/red desert dymondwood with blood wood and phenolic accent lines. The limbs are walnut back, black glass belly, blood wood wedges and natural A-boo cores. I think it's pulling about 45# @ 28", but I need to double check.
Tips are clear glass, black glass, and blood wood.
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/21DA99F3-2C19-48A4-80E7-138C7A0A6A99_zps75pnqwmi.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/21DA99F3-2C19-48A4-80E7-138C7A0A6A99_zps75pnqwmi.jpg.html)
Unstrung profile
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/790969F7-1F71-48DA-96E2-AF44FE9174BD_zps2wl60gom.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/790969F7-1F71-48DA-96E2-AF44FE9174BD_zps2wl60gom.jpg.html)
At about 7.75" brace
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/D75B85A6-E3EB-407F-ADB7-4C6150661333_zps0okdzm0o.png) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/D75B85A6-E3EB-407F-ADB7-4C6150661333_zps0okdzm0o.png.html)
At about 27.25" draw
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/4C64409E-698B-4FFC-86BD-881010B85128_zpsdg8rofpl.png) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/4C64409E-698B-4FFC-86BD-881010B85128_zpsdg8rofpl.png.html)
Right at you! Lol
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/96C8D483-D88C-4341-A553-69E59C3F5DCF_zpspor6aruz.png) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/96C8D483-D88C-4341-A553-69E59C3F5DCF_zpspor6aruz.png.html)
Pay no attention to the handsome fellow pulling the string! Lol. There is no side plate or rest material on yet, and I think I might be a tad high with nock point in these pictures. Sorry for the poor quality, they are stills taken from a video I shot with my iPhone. I'll be sure to take much better pics and close ups of the riser after its finished. Thanks for looking.
-
I dunno, I guess it's ok
-
Looks like a fine job to me!!
And Roy,mebbe yer eye is on crooked this morn! LOL
-
Lookin good! Just curious, what's your pad angle? Been thinking about trying a 3 piece myself.
Oh, and I hear Roy even pee's crooked! :laughing:
-
That is looking nice!!
-
Looking good, are the limb profile a true circle? Bue--.
-
Thanks for the kind words gents. I even got an ok outta Roy! Now that's something.
Critter, the pad angles are either 10 or 10.5*, I'll check tonight when I go to work on it. I layed this block up a few months back, and don't really remember where I settled on. I've been tweaking a lot of stuff during the past few months. This is actually the first set of limbs off this form.
Bue, I don't believe the profile is a true circle. The outer portion of the limbs are a bit straighter than the rest.
-
Very nice !
-
I like it.
-
Looking good old man. Post more pics when you get it finished up. Very nice lines.
-
Its looking really good, looking forward to the finished pictures.
-Jay
-
Looks good. The tips look very good
-
Thanks again everyone! I haven't had much time to work on it yet this weekend, but hopefully tomarrow. I did get the majority of the final shaping done on the riser, and fired the first arrows from her today. I will say, it is a bit quicker than I antisipated and the draw is nice and smooth, but the shot wasn't as smooth or quiet as my previous limbs. I think I might need to tweak the tiller a bit, and I need to get a longer string made up for it. On most of my bows, they seem to be a bit quieter with a lower brace, but a bit smoother on release with a higher brace. I'm hoping a longer string, and a slight tweak in tiller will solve these issues. Its not bad by most standards, it's just not as good as my previous design (except for the speed). Btw, the pads are 10*.
-
So, I had a nice little surprise yesterday. I was digging through some spare strings that I had laying around and found one that brought the brace height down to 7.25". This is more in the range that I expected the bow to like, and what a difference it made! It felt like I was shooting a different bow! It was a bare string, and it still had a little twang to it. I had also found another string that was really close to the same length (or so I thought) that had wool string scallops already installed. When I put that string on, my brace was way down to 6 3/8"! I almost took the string back off and put silencers on the other string, but I thought it's already strung up, may as well take at least one shot. I can't believe how well this bow shoots with that low of a brace! I expected it be as bad or worse than the 7.75" brace but it was excellent. It may be a tad on the low side now, but I'm confident that the tiller is fine, and aside from some fine sanding, it's ready for finish. Hopefully this weekend I'll get the first few coats on her. When I get the finish on, I'll get the final specs, and some good pictures.
-
I figure I should give a little update. As with most new designs, I ran into quite a few problems along the way, learned a few things that I'll do differently on the next one, and spotted a few places for improvement.
These limbs were originally designed to make a 58" bow on the 14" riser. I filed in shallow string grooves at 60.5" before final profiling to see how the limbs were bending. I screwed up when I marked my tree, and forgot to add the 1 3/4" from the throat of the grip. :knothead: So when I thought I was at 28", I was in fact at 29 3/4". I ended up only taking the bow down to 59" instead of the planned 58". Naturally, this threw my draw length and weight readings. It was originally intended to have a 1/2" longer top limb, but I didn't care for the profile so I made it symmetrical.
I like the braced profile now, but it threw me a curve ball with the tillering. While the riser was in block form, the limbs wanted a neutral tiller for level nock travel at my designed nock height. After shaping the riser, and final prepping of the limbs, I ended up with 1/16" positive tiller. I thought this would be close enough to shoot and make final adjustments later.
I sprayed some thunderbird high solids sealer on the riser, and spent some time shooting her with the longer string. I settled on 6 3/4" brace and found some arrows that flew true. I ended up re-working the grip a touch, and concluded that the tiller still needed some adjustment. That's where I'm at now.
Only problem is, I'm not sure which limb needs to be worked on. Conventional knowledge would dictate weakening the upper limb and increasing positive tiller. My past bows have all shot best between an 1/8-3/16" positive. But they have also been slightly asymmetrical. I put the bow back on the tree, and it says the bottom limb is too stiff (cable drifts toward the bottom limb). Here's the weird thing; when I nocked the arrow at 3/4", the bow smoothed out a bit and was quieter. But after seeing the results on the tree, I lowered the nock to 5/16" and the bow shot the best it has! Only problem is that nock height is too low compared to the shelf to get clean arrow flight. 5/16" was definitely better than 3/4"! It seems that 1/2" has the limbs too far off time to shoot smoothly, but the nock height is just about right for proper arrow flight.
Has anyone else had a similar situation? If so, what was the proper fix? More or less positive tiller? It's my thinking that less, or a weaker bottom limb, will shift that balance point and like wise the nock point up a tad. I'm hoping that will bring the limbs into better timing with a high enough nock point for clean arrow flight.
I really can't afford to go the wrong direction here, as my limb profiles are just about as narrow at I want to take them, and I'm already at the bottom end of my desired draw weight. I do have room to pike the tips, but I'd prefer not to as the overlays and shaping is already complete. Any and all advice is welcome. Sorry for the long post, but thanks for any insight.
-
I believe the positive tiller rule of thumb is based on wood bows with flat grips. If you use a grip like what's on your riser you add additional pressure on the bottom limb causing the dynamic tiller to be way too positive. I'm reworking a test riser to make a flatter grip and the nock height comes down to 3/8" with even tiller. Before I had to go to 3/4" or more to get good flight. I did a high speed video that showed the nock dropping at release with the pistol grip style. This caused the arrow to bounce off the shelf. So you could lower your grip or go with negative tiller. It's up to you. Try shooting the bow with the low spot of the grip in the web of your hand and pull with your lower fingers on the back of the bow which puts more stress on the top limb and see what happen.
-
Benbow, thanks for the suggestion. I will give it a try to see if I can learn anything from it. The grip angle has been reduced quite a bit already since those first few pics. It's far from straight, but a much lower wrist angle. I'm pretty happy with how the grip feels now, so any more adjustments will have to be made through the tiller.
-
So I finally got this one just about complete. I need to buff this last coat of gloss out, write the specs, add one more coat of gloss, and a coat or two of flat. I'm also contemplating using some beaver tail for the rest and strike plate. As is my normal, these pictures don't do the bow justice, but you get the idea.
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/AB9FBE59-7505-46E2-9B35-A1DA226EE4AA_zpspwjoejba.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/AB9FBE59-7505-46E2-9B35-A1DA226EE4AA_zpspwjoejba.jpg.html)
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/C63B8AAB-274E-4F25-B0E6-9584B6ADDA70_zpsiqnaqjvo.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/C63B8AAB-274E-4F25-B0E6-9584B6ADDA70_zpsiqnaqjvo.jpg.html)
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/B574541C-9CDF-4C89-ACBB-F145640B3150_zpsmyrqhhgs.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/B574541C-9CDF-4C89-ACBB-F145640B3150_zpsmyrqhhgs.jpg.html)
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/17D94265-ECD2-4891-BF21-9ABD1B3A3B41_zpsf4clly7c.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/17D94265-ECD2-4891-BF21-9ABD1B3A3B41_zpsf4clly7c.jpg.html)
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/33BEF981-A6E8-4040-A637-1182D1126D33_zpsau0n2kop.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/33BEF981-A6E8-4040-A637-1182D1126D33_zpsau0n2kop.jpg.html)
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/6F10F11B-40A5-4FD5-BCA0-4930C6565642_zpsflfeofed.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/6F10F11B-40A5-4FD5-BCA0-4930C6565642_zpsflfeofed.jpg.html)
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/BB1C84B4-3DB2-452C-A04A-EC9055AE659C_zpsfcokqcld.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/BB1C84B4-3DB2-452C-A04A-EC9055AE659C_zpsfcokqcld.jpg.html)
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/8E622BFB-41A1-431C-B0C1-7671A831DA40_zpsi2fmscb7.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/8E622BFB-41A1-431C-B0C1-7671A831DA40_zpsi2fmscb7.jpg.html)
-
I went down to my local archery shop today to do some shooting, and to show her to my buddy that works there. We spent some time shooting this bow, along with some Bears and a Widow that they had in stock. I was pleased with the results. My buddy kept trying to talk me into leaving the bow with him. Lol.
I ended up taking the bow back down to a neutral tiller, put a used SBD string on her and tied some new hush puppies on it. At 6 3/4" brace, the bow draws and shoots smoothly and the only sound I really notice is a slight ringing of the limbs. I couldn't hear anything but a nice little thump when my buddy was shooting it. I'm pretty happy with how everything turned out.
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/A00F8AD4-310E-4D40-99DF-4634CEF089C7_zpskmfjwrgh.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/A00F8AD4-310E-4D40-99DF-4634CEF089C7_zpskmfjwrgh.jpg.html)
At 27"
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/F7CFC4EC-8552-4871-98E4-214E36977065_zps5h5tw6lk.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/F7CFC4EC-8552-4871-98E4-214E36977065_zps5h5tw6lk.jpg.html)
At 28"
While my buddy was waiting on a customer, I thought I'd shoot a couple through the chrono, just for fun.
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/EEB000F2-EBFE-4762-9591-9A79B3B10862_zpsd8ibrqnf.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/EEB000F2-EBFE-4762-9591-9A79B3B10862_zpsd8ibrqnf.jpg.html)
11.52gpp @ 27"!
(http://i1316.photobucket.com/albums/t608/Pheonixarcher/EAE417D5-7DAF-4494-ABE9-41791392DBE5_zpsbtkxs4ix.jpg) (http://s1316.photobucket.com/user/Pheonixarcher/media/EAE417D5-7DAF-4494-ABE9-41791392DBE5_zpsbtkxs4ix.jpg.html)
8.99gpp @ 27"!
I was pleasantly surprised with those numbers at 27" and freshly installed and un-trimmed wool puff balls on the string.
I forgot to mention that we both routinely had feathers touching at 20 yards. Pretty good for me, and great for him (wheely shooter). Hopefully, after I get the flat on, I'll have a nice sunny day to get a few better pics and a new full draw.
-
What an excellent looking bow. Nice job sir!
-
I look at bows every day, this is what I do; it is Art personified. Great looker you have. :cool:
-
Very nice....
-
What a beauty, Pheonixarcher! You did a great job!
-
Thanks guys. It's been a long time in the making on this one. It's good to finally get some serious time behind the string.
-
You Nailed it.. Looks Great, Shoots Great.. Congratulations on a nice bow build..!
-
The more I shoot it, the more I like it. So that's a good thing. Only problem is, I didn't make a heavier set of limbs for this bow as well. I got my bear permit for this fall, and I don't think 39.5#@27" is gonna cut it. Rather than trying to fit another set of limbs to this bow and having to re finish the whole thing, I'll probly just build another separate bow. I just hope I can get the next one done in record time (for me).
-
Paul that is one sweet bow!
-
-
Guess I missed the whole second page bow looks great with the finish on it.
Lol