All things come round to him who will but wait

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:22 pm

Teach us, O Lord, the disciplines of patience, for to wait is often harder than to work.

Hey guys!
So... this is my first post. And it is on my first bow ever (dont know why i skipped by the whole selfbow thingy. Guess i just couldnt controll myself).. Well, it isnt a bow yet since it hasnt shot an arrow, but its on its way.
I finally got the last layer of sinew on the thing, so now comes the hardest time, SEASONING!!
Anyhow, I just wanted to thank you guys for this great forum, and the sharing of your experience and knowledge! And also a thanks to Adam for his great book!

And now some pictures on the process and how it looks today. If you have any comment on the shape or anything else, please enlighten the inexperienced first-timer.

Break a leg!

Christopher

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:23 pm

Here are the pictures

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 2:53 pm

All ready for sinew

After third layer (SEASONING)

BR
Christopher

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 3:39 pm

nice. good luck

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Sat Mar 24, 2012 10:13 pm

Thanks Uli

Now, I have a question for the more experienced researchers.
I of course want to keep constructing these amazing bows, but since it is such a time consuming hobby, my girlfriend isn't too keen on me continuing. But then, she is from Afhganistan, and to make her more accepting I would like my next project to be a hornbow from her home region.
So... Which bow design should I choose if i want it to be from the Afghan region in Asia?

Thanks for the help

Chris

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:36 am

hehe good plan..

I d suggest a Sindh-like bow.
See Grayson Collection:
http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/grayso ... arrow.shtm

There is also an article about central asian archery in the current Journal of the Society of Archer Antiquaries.

Somebody here (Yokhua? I am not sure) once wrote the "Tatar" bow design originated in Afghanistan (i.e. like turkish but with reflexed grip and string bridges, which is very similar to the Sindh bow). But I cannot confirm that any further. There was likely a mix of ethnicities and bow designs.

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 9:55 pm

Hey all, and thanks again Uli.

I think I will look into that Tatar-type bow. It seems that is the one with most info here on ATARN, so it might be easier to aproach. Also my girlfriend confirms that the tartars are still a minority population in Afghanistan. And maybe I will have a look at the Crab-bows too, they look sooo nice!

Now, for those who are interested, a few more specifications on my turkish style bow:

Core: one piece, bamboo

Siyahs: spliced in, cherry

Handle: glued on, cherry

All gluing is done with matching grooves.
The glue used is hide-glue, as I'm having a hard time finding palate-glue (and its SO expensive!!)

Horn: Water-buffalo

Sinew: Red-deer achilles

Size of bow:

110cm ntn

mid sal:
thick - 1,25cm
wide - 3,5cm
(all subject to change when i start the tillering)

length of kasan: 6,5 inches
lenght of sal: 8,5 inches

current weight: 387grams (still loosing weight do to evaporation, though its slowed down significantly)

And now some more pictures of the process:

Best Regards

Chris

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:41 pm

Sooo... Tonight I tried to brace my bow for the first time, and this is what happend....

photo upload

Believe me when I tell you that my heart stopped for a second or two...
Anyways, I guess I will be making two new tepeliks of some more durable wood in the next week and then try again. Somehow bracing the bow both seem to be the worst and best part of the construction. ADRENALINE RUSH!

Best Regards

Christopher

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:10 am

its hard to estimate from pictures, but your bow looks quite beasty.

! DO NOT BRACE IT AT ONCE !

better stepwise over 3 to 7 days.

you can also heat it for first brace
(at the possible risk of loosing some drawweight)

Arry · Post by **Arry** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 9:21 am

It looks great! What tool did you use to shape the core?

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:57 pm

Thanks for the advice and compliment.

Yeah, I think the bow is quite heavy. I actually havent made one before, so I have no way of estimating the draw weight. I did though, have to put a lot of wait on to bend the limb over the tepelik, and actually did succeed in doing so and was about to tie it down when the tepelik broke. I will now consider heating the whole thing prior to bracing.

A problem i have had with this bow is that it has been really hard to open it up more. This I think is due to the thin bamboo core that i used. When I glued the horn on the core it caused an amount of reflex really close to the grip. This means that I have been able to reduce reflex in the sal kasan transaktion, but the total reflex of the bow is still a fair bit, because of the reflex at the grip. Another problem was caused when one of the horn strips was thicker then the other, and therefor caused more reflex in one limp. An imballance that I havent been able to correct, and now have chosen to ignore, close my eyes and hope for the best i guess.

Anyhow, these things, and the fact that I'm not completely satisfied with my first gluings (handle and kasan reinforcement)(which I only realised after having later made some proper gluings) made me choose to reinforce the grip-sal and sal-kasan transactions with senew wrappings. Better a working "ugly" bow then a broken aestetic one, I'm thinking.

All this you might be able to see in this picture:

photo hosting

And now for the tools.
Since I dont really have a workshop and I have a students budget I have been using the tools I could find at my dads house and get cheap at the local hardware store. This has severily prolonged the construction, though the shaping of the core I guess is pretty much the same for everybody.
So here is a picture of the tools I used for the core shaping: (of course I also used sandpaper :-p)

upload picture

Best Regards

Christopher

bheggeseth · Post by **bheggeseth** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:25 pm

It looks like the tepelik broke along the grain. If you cut the tepelik with the grain it should be less likely to break.

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 6:53 pm

.. regarding the imbalance:

if the bow is not pre-tillered this will end up in the stronger limb destroying the weaker one.

you can either tiller down the stronger horn or use heat to weaken the stronger limb when braced (carefully !) - that will however not cause exaltation among experienced bowyers

Christopher · Post by **Christopher** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 7:31 pm

Thanks again for the advice, it is much appreciated.

But the limp has already been tillered to a degree where I think that both limbs are equal in thickness and strength. The problem, I believe, lie now in the gluing of the horn to the core, and the sinewing which was done on top of the already unequal reflex. So the limb is simply glued in a more reflexed position. Kind of stupid on my part, especially since it makes it hard to determine the tillering and the consequences of not taking care of this. It may be that the best chioce is, as you say, correcting it with heat since this will affect the gluing.

And conserning the tepeliks you are quite right. I used some leftover wood from a kitchen table. Next time I will use one piece wood, with no glue lines.