Friday 25 March 2011

Twisting Bow?

I've spent most of the day coaxing the bow back to full draw 54 pounds at 28" (still not quite full bracing height, but close enough).
It was my first day working at it outside this year, glorious day, sitting with a bow, rasps, files, scraper and a mug of tea. The hedgerows coming into bloom and my first sighting of Bombylius Major in the garden which always makes me smile.
There is some natural twist in the bow and a wee bit of sideways curve. The big question, does it twist as it's drawn back?
I taped a couple of spills onto the ends of the bow and got them lined up, winched it back to full draw and they pretty much are still in line. This indicates that the twist is remaining consistent through the draw and it's not missbehaving.
Here's a shot of it unstrung and at full draw, you can see some of the character in the bow.
At full draw the left limb could do to curve a tad more where that slight hump is.
I've still got a few pounds of draw weight to play with (target weight is 50 pounds), it's not quite to full brace height yet and I may also take a whisker of the length when I put the horn nocks on, so there is room to tweak that left limb a bit.
The other question from yesterday is does the limb bend sideways? Well ,there is a very slight S shape to the bow but it seems stable, I'd expect sideways bend to also show as twist which would be seen in the pictures above. I have shot a couple of arrow from it, but it still needs a fair bit of finishing before I can really see how it shoots.
The knot I plugged has almost dissapeared as I've worked down the bow. I had intended to leave wood all around it but now only a sliver remains.

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