Another Year's Round Up

Christmas has just about wound down, we'll be making a robust Turkey soup this afternoon which I always enjoy and hopefully we'll ease off eating nibbles etc until New Years Eve.
I'm trying to get back to normal and doing some stuff in the garage. I got some nice useful presents.
A Taper reamer for cleaning up the taper in my lathe headstock mandrel (work in progress already).
Some nice waxed sash cord for my tiller rig, it's a waxed cotton braided outer with a polypropylene (I think) inner core. It's a tad irritating that they don't quote a breaking strain or safe working load, but I think it should be fine. It has a much nicer feel than the nylon rope I have on there at the mo'.
A book of "simple steam engines" that I can maybe make on the lathe and mill, some other books too.
I've also got a nice zip up cardigan that I'm "allowed" to wear in the garage ;-) rather than those that are for "best". I don't really differentiate, as long as I'm warm and my arse is covered I'm not fussed about clothing, but I take advice on what is appropriate attire!

I got some draught excluder too that I'm going to use on the bandsaw to improve the efficiency of the dust extraction. I've already made one mod, which was to add a block of pvc foam with a slit cut in it to stop sawdust being carried up into the top of the bandsaw from where it falls back down onto the work. It was just a quick try out held in with double sided tape, but it is quite effective.
I bought myself a present which I didn't open until Christmas day, some cheapo bright yellow carbon arrows from China to turn into nice visible crossbow bolts. They will give me something to tinker with (I've ordered extra screw in points and inserts, I'll prob make the nocks myself)

I've looked back over the blog to see what I've actually done over the year, as I though I'd not done much.
Four Yew ELBs, a Yew flight bow, I worked with my mate JT mentoring him as he made a Yew warbow (I had one explode on the tiller too)
Two Yew Primitives, a pair of Hazel Primitives, one of Plum and a little bamboo bow for visiting kids to use.

So that's about a bow per month, which is nice...
I made a shooting machine which was useful for observing flight arrows as they leave the bow and this helped me achieve my new PB for a self bow (Osage) of 341 yards. I'll push the bow a little harder and try to improve on this on a suitable day when the ground is soft and the weather is good.
My crossbow project went through about half a dozen iterations of Yew/Bamboo prods before I resorted to fibreglass.
The workshop had a bit of a reorganisation to accommodate a second hand micro milling machine (Clarke CMD10) which has been very useful for the crossbow parts once it was repaired and refurbished.

All in all a pretty constructive year, I even managed to do most of the things on the "jobs around the house list" ... in fact I've already done one thing off next years list, which was fixing some kitchen cupboard doors which were graunching and would have driven us mad whilst trying to cook Christmas dinner.

I have a few projects lined up for the new year including making a jig to do fancy 4 point footings on arrows.
Wishing you all a great 2019, may your arrows all fly true, and may those that don't remain clearly visible!

40# Yew Distance Test

My mate JT picked me up and we went over to Now Strike Archers near Chelmsford to lob some arrows, have a natter and to enjoy a beer and bowl of chips on the way home at the Rainbow and Dove on the outskirts of Harlow.
At least one of us, Mick Black made a festive effort! (with a wonky warbow)
The Yew bow shot very nicely and I must have put about 40 or 50 more arrows through it.
My regular arrows were making 180 yards (very slightly down hill, no wind) and the flight arrow* managed 217yards.
The wind freshened into a slight head wind later which was limiting the regular arrows to nearer 170 yards, all of which is very respectable for a 40# bow.
Note:- Distances measured by laser rage finder.
*The flight arrow was just a quickly re-worked old warbow flight arrow, so it was only a little lighter than my regular arrows (348gn vs ~400 gn). it was also a whisker too stiff. The implication being that a reasonable clout arrow would make a similar distance and a well tuned slightly lighter flight arrow could maybe get another 10 yards.

Yew 40# ELB Finished

This'll be my last bow of the year ... probably :-) ... !
I've made the string, shot 30 arrows through it, done the arrow plate and leather grip. It's very handsome with some interesting features including an odd line where the sapwood becomes darker, this shows above the grip  where the tail end of the splice shows.
I don't think the process whereby wood turns from sapwood to heartwood is fully understood (certainly not by me!) but it seems to be a bit random.

Because it's from book matched billets the undulations on each limb are nicely matched, and you can see the bow has a nice overall straightness, thanks to a bit of heat bending early in the tillering.

The knotty feature is on the lower limb about 10" from the tip.

I expect I'll do a review of the year as the next post, but don't s'pose I'll post much over the festive season. So just in case:-
Seasons greetings and a happy Winter Solstice to one and all.
May your fletchings stay dry and your arrows fly true.

40# Yew ELB Virtually Finished.

I've fitted the horn nocks, the top one is black, and the bottom one has turned out to be very dark brown! I tapered the tips/outer limbs to blend nicely into the nocks, getting them to flex a bit more.
If you compare with the pic in the previous post you can see the shape is more full bellied.
It needed some careful work on the knots and dips near the tips, making sure there were no thick spots.
It's now pulling 40# at 27", I'll leave the last 1" of draw until I've made a string and I can shoot some arrows through it to get it "shot in".
Note, an extra inch of draw only equates to about 1.4 pounds increase in draw weight.
I made a video here :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYwckQDlBE8&t=7s
And here's a still showing it at 40# @ 27"
It may want a leather grip and arrow plate, I'll consult the guy who commissioned
it.

Correcting Bad Tiller

I was tempted to call this post "A Tillering Tutorial", but thought that sounded pretentious. The point of it is to show that we all have problems and that a methodical approach will get it sorted.

Target weight/draw length 40# at 28"
The bow is made of spliced billets which can sometimes give a slight miss match to the way the limbs behave if the wood is from two different staves.
To cut to the chase, I've got it at a low brace and pulling to 40# at about 19" or so. Always pull to full draw weight as long as the tiller looks ok.... errr.
I got a shock, the tiller looks hideous, but let's not panic, let's look at it dispassionately as there are several things going on, all of which all work together to make it look awful.
1. There is a slight downward bend in the lower (left) limb just left of the grip.
2. There is a slightly weak point in the left limb at the bend mentioned above.
3. The right limb is stiff.
4. I had it sitting on the tiller slightly too far to the right and was pulling the string a little too far off centre.

I check the simple things first, I re-position it on the tiller and even try it round the other way. It still looks bad. I also unstring it and look at how much of that bend is in the stave (probably a couple of inches).
First fix, I use heat  to remove that bend (15 minutes with a hot air gun and the bow strapped up).
Ah, it looks great unstrung, but still ugly as sin on the tiller.

I take some off the right limb with a rasp, but it doesn't make any difference... it just doesn't seem to want to bend any more. It does have some stiff areas where there are knots, but I want to get some method into the panic.

I compare the thickness of the right and left limbs where that bend is (about 6" from the centre line) using my verniers as a go/no go gauge rather than an actual measurement.
Ah, the stiff right limb is indeed thicker! (despite looking generally thinner, maybe it's just colour variation or heartwood/sapwood difference)
I rasp that area of the right limb until the verniers will just slip over it.
That gives some sort of reference point at the start of the limb. From there I can slide the verniers along the limb, and of course it should become loose as the limb gets thinner. It soon jams on a thick part where there is a knot. Now conventional wisdom tells you to leave some extra at a knot, but how much? I know I have plenty of draw weight still to play with, so if I rasp it down until the verniers only just fit over it, that will still be a little thicker than it should be, (because the limb should have tapered a bit by then). I then check just beyond the knot and the verniers rattle loosely at that point, so I adjust them to be snug and slide them along the limb some more.

I do this along the limb to check that the knots aren't too thick and that there is a gradual taper all along. By the time I've finished I've taken off a good deal of wood with the rasp. I've also taken care to look at the limb from both sides as it's easy to work at an angle giving an uneven thickness across the limb. Having taken some off the belly, the corners where sides meet belly are now a bit sharp, so I rasp these corners off.
Back on the tiller ... groan... the right limb is still stiff... will it never bend. I take the bow in my hand and draw it rapidly back and forth about 20 times, and then decide to try it the other way round with the stiff right (upper) limb as the lower instead.
I re-measure the centre of the bow, mark the new arrow pass 1" above the centre line and put it up on the tiller.
Much better...
Quit while I'm ahead, and decide that writing this up will be a useful post for everyone getting frustrated with limbs that won't bend!

Now I've taken more pics and you can see the improvement.
The main point is that in correcting the tiller the draw has now increased from about 20" to 24", the tiller isn't perfect yet, but it's well on it's way to decent tiller and 28" draw.
Hopefully this shows why you need to get the tiller sorted early.
It's ready for horn nocks now, which will involve tapering the outer limbs too and should get them coming round more.
Youtube video here:-
https://youtu.be/kWaO9K4yko8

I see someone has ticked the "explain more" box. I don't really know what specifically explain. Maybe it's the FAQ about why I have the bow tilting to the right and why reversing the bow on the tiller can make a difference?
To explain briefly, the bow is held at some point roughly in the middle, but the arrow sits above that and the string is pulled in line with the arrow. So the whole thing isn't symmetrical! This doesn't make too much difference on a long bow, but can be very significant on a short bow. If you clamp a bow dead centre, pull the string from dead centre and tiller it like that, when it is held in the hand and shot, the tiller will look slightly off.

Visitor Bearing Yew

I met a new friend on line who's getting into making bows, he'd been reading the blog and I'd offered some advice on tillering. He'd also offered some Yew, but being an old and lazy git I didn't really feel up to the 90+ minute drive each way and heaving yew around (in my defence there were some home issues too at the time)
Anyhow he volunteered to bring the Yew over and spend some time in the garage, seeing what I get up to.
We had a great time, shot the Chinese repeater and my little crossbow, but most of the time was spent re-tillering a Warbow that he'd bought. It raised some interesting questions about tillering.
The bow was of about 130# and had apparently been tillered to 33" .
There's no way I'm going to heave an unknown bow back to 33" on the tiller, so, what draw weight and length did he actually want? About 100# at 32" was the target.
The dilemma is, do we pull it to 32" and see what it is now for comparison or just pull to 100# and see where we are starting from? Well boys and girls, can you guess which I went for?
Yes, pull to 100# 'cos that's the target weight. Well we didn't even pull it that far straight away as we watched it flex and critiqued the tiller... Which is the stiffer limb? Where is it bending most? Can you see/feel any thick spots?
Anyhow it was 100# at 27" which we could interpolate to the draw weight at 32".
Divide 100# by 27" to give pounds per inch and then multiply that by 32 which gives 118.5 or near as dammit 120# .
This isn't exact but it's gives me a good idea of how much wood I'll be taking off ... (reaches for big rasp)

After reducing the thick spots first, working the belly down and tidying the tips and nocks, it eventually ended up at about 100# @ 30" which was deemed to be close enough, allowing for some subsequent sanding (I'd just finished it with a cabinet scraper), shooting in, etc.
I think seeing how I work and think was quite enlightening, as of course I didn't do all the work at once, it was up and down on the tiller umpteen times. I also did a quick demo of how to put a burr on a cabinet scraper. On the other hand I was, rather rushing and the bow was clattering around with one end resting on my vice with a strip of carpet on it. Normally I'd have clamped it and taken a little more care, working in shorter burst, but we were on a fairly tight time scale. It can get a bit busy trying to show all the processes in a four hour burst (tea and toast breaks of course!)
Once he'd gone I sneaked upstairs for a cat nap, and was out like a light.
Next day (yesterday) I ran the Yew through the bandsaw, wrote the date on it and painted the ends with PVA. The first tidy up through the bandsaw is basically taking the corners off. A half log is semicircle so that gets reduced to more of a D and a Quarter log is pretty much triangular, so the corners are taken off. Anything heavy is reduced in stages, one log was big knots along one side with only a relatively narrow clear strip and I had to take most of the knotty side off first to provide a flat face that would run flat on the bandsaw table for the next cut. I have the far end of the log supported on a roller, but even so it's about at the limit of what I can manage single handed.
The first pics shows the load of Yew with just one piece having been tidied up through the bandsaw.
The final pic shows the 4 good staves (one is barely visible against the garage floor) and a log which didn't really have anything suitable in it, (it may have had a single billet, but you really want billets as pairs, its on the habitat pile in the garden now for the bugs and beetles to enjoy).
The biggest stave may make two bows, but it's best left for now as the position of various knots may mean it's better to have one good warbow stave than two skinny marginal staves. It's the old adage "when in doubt leave it"

Visitors and a Good Chat

My old friend Roy from Med' Soc' came over for the Plum which now has a handsome black leather grip, he brought a friend David along who was interested in having a Yew ELB made.
He was also very interested in flight arrows so we had a good chat and I showed him some of my slo-mo footage of flight arrows being shot from the shooting machine. David was taking about the concept of "centre of effort" which is from sailing, it turned out we mostly agreed with each other but the semantics of describing our thoughts got in the way somewhat!
He'd tested some arrows by dropping them horizontally from a high window and wanted them ideally to fall whilst remaining horizontal or turn  slightly nose down (He can correct me if I'm wrong). I said that my corresponding test was to lob 'em up in the air underarm and I wanted them to arc over at the top of their travel and to fall nose down.
It's an interesting topic as, once the arrow leaves the bow it is falling under the influence of the acceleration due to gravity, BUT if it is shot up at 45 degrees, that angled velocity is superimposed on the fall, and until the downward velocity has increased sufficiently to overcome the upward component it still goes up.
So, is it falling relative to the air or not... or is it just falling on the way down? Do you want it to present as much resistance to downward motion as possible to slow its fall (e.g falling whilst horizontal) whilst having as little resistance as possible to forward travel? Or do you always want it lined up with the direction of travel (feel free to comment... I like comments, it shows me that people read this!).
Much of this has been addressed empirically by Clarence N Hickman using his shooting machine in the early 1900s.
I'm not going to be drawn into venturing an opinion, I'll only say that my flight arrows have their point of balance just forward of the geometric centre by about 3 or 4 % and that I've seen arrows with the balance point too far back fly most erratically turning and diving at right angles!
I use the balance point (centre of gravity) and the geometric centre as these are both easily measured.
Enough of that!
(We also had a go with the Chinese repeating crossbow of course).

Having discussed making a bow it motivated me to sort through some billets one pair looked suitable, a much fatter pair that I will also splice up had some of the dreaded blue grey discolouration (even the good pair had a little). As the billets are cleaned and reduced in dimension the wood looked better, so hopefully any bad stuff is only on the surface. It won't matter too much for a 40 pounder, but for a warbow a clean sound back is critical.
I got the billets for the 40# spliced up and have been working it down to stave that flexes. Mind, it's so long since I made a 40# ELB it's still about warbow weight! Not quite ready for the tiller yet.
Note on the pic of the billets prepared for splicing, they need a nice clean flat surface so that the sit nicely on the bandsaw to give decent straight cuts, also clean flat faces are easier to mark out.

On an unrelated topic... a story was told to me (I try not to report stuff second hand , but this has a purpose).
Someone said that they'd had no joy patching damaged bows, and they'd tried long patches but even those failed.  The other person replied that they'd seen me do it a couple of times and that I spend a lot of time getting a perfect fit, holding it up to the light and repeatedly checking until its a good fit.
The response was words to the effect of "I haven't got time to mess about doing all that!"
What??? How can you have the time to repeatedly do something badly and have it fail, but don't have the time and patience to try doing it right? Bonkers!