Turkish bow

alex27 · Post by **alex27** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 10:49 am

This bow was hanging on my wall for over a year when I finally had time to try to string it. Unfortunately, the horn was not glued the right way, and came off in the sal area in one limb. One year for nothing!

I took the horn away and glued a new one on, succesfully untill now.
After 1.5 month of drying, I started working on it this week, and this morning put the string on it.

The limbs are unbalanced and the limb that bends the most has the new horn glued on. The bow has almost no twist.

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to proceed here? Scrape horn away, heating the limbs, adding more sinew to the weaker limb?

My idea would be to add some more sinew to the weaker limb, and maybe scrape some horn away on that limb between the weak spot and the grip.

Reto · Post by **Reto** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 8:12 pm

Hi Alex

What a pity! I assume the problem is not the horn rather than the core (too thin or broken). Try a new bow, put the old one in water and use sinew for arrows and maybe the horn for a new bow.

Good luck.
Reto

Are you in Riederalp this winter?

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Sun Dec 16, 2012 10:23 pm

I would not go that far. It looks like a well shaped bow which it should be possible to tweak into shootable. If for nothing else than the learning experience.

Trying to put on some extra sinew now might give some adhesion-problems, especially if you only cover a small area. I'd adjust the thickness of the sinew and horn as much as possible to make the sals bend more evently, and then add sinew in two stages. First put on patches of short strands where it is most needed, and then put on a full-length layer over the whole of the sal. I did this on my last turkish and it worked alright. - even after having been thoroughly handled and shot for a year before putting on the extra layer. - just make sure to file down all of the area you are going to cover with sinew again.

After this is done you could also lower the stress in the overbent places by forcing in some deflex with heat in the areas of the sal that does not want to bend enough.

alex27 · Post by **alex27** » Mon Dec 17, 2012 6:00 am

It might be possible that the splice is not a 100% holding in this area, causing the limb to bend more in this area, but I am not going to give up right away on this bow.

Kviljo, like you say I will put more sinew on the limb. I already sanded the sinew, and will start with a short patch and than cover the whole limb.

Reto, I am at the Riederalp this winter

Uli · Post by **Uli** » Wed Dec 19, 2012 7:24 am

string the bow
heat the weaker limb carefully in sal
and bend it over the knee carefully several times
until the limbs are equally strong

attention: between heating and bending let the bow be strung and cool down for some minutes, its possible to make the limb weaker than intended because the bow ist strung.

this is probably not the master bowyer approach
and you permanently loose drawweight in the stronger limb
but it sould work, as long as there is no broken core..

alex27 · Post by **alex27** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 1:19 pm

I put more sinew on the weaker limb last week. I filed the horn on both sides of the weak spot and kasan area as well. This morning I strung it again and it looks much better. I applied some heat to one one of the kasan areas while it was a bit stiffer.
It almost tends to be weaker on the other limb now, but I think from here on I can go on. No broken bow!

The "problem limb" is on the left side.

Kviljo · Post by **Kviljo** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 2:53 pm

Awesome! That looks much better

alex27 · Post by **alex27** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 10:29 am

This morning I decided to put the bow to the test. I pulled it out to 25"
The photo shows 24". Don't feel comfortable to pull it further yet. I will start shooting it now at 25", and have already shot some arrows at 22" Hope to pull it to at least 27" in the end.
The bow always has a strong tendency to twist to one side right after stringing. After one night of adjustment, forcing it to the other side, the bow is stable. I don't like to apply heat for this. Is this normal?