A Good Day at the Office

I received a nice letter this morning from a guy on the primitive Archer forum. There was a thread on there about the movie Dances With Wolves and he mentioned that he'd been asked if he could make the arrow heads for the movie, when he asked how many they wanted, they said 3000!
He got a punch tool made up and the company he worked for donated a reel of steel strip. Anyhow he had plenty left over an sent me one! He stamped out some in silver too that were made up as presentation arrows for some of the cast.
It's just a stamped out blank, but it's the back story that appealed to me and it's a great addition to my collection of curiosities.
 I just love the breadth of experience and generosity that's there on the internet, especially on the Primitive Archer forum.

My mate JT came over for a session in the man cave working on a very knotty bent Yew stave, I pretty much let him get on with while I turned up a new fixing screw for the belt sander, the original had vibrated out, ripped the belt and pinged off into oblivion. (Could have had my eye out!).
The knotty wood and swirling grain was causing some tearing, he switched from drawknife to the farriers rasp after lunch. I stayed away from the Yew dust and had a cat nap.
 After he'd left I cleaned up the glued up billets for the boo/Yew warbow. I ran a straight line down the middle, trimmed it up a bit and cleaned up the face for gluing on the belt sander. I ran a length of bamboo through the bandsaw too, to take off some of the excess thickness. I should get that planed up and glued tomorrow.
(The billets have been glued up to make use of their natural curve to give a nice slight deflex/reflex shape. See pic)

Sorting Through My Yew

I've been sorting through my Yew and taking the dodgy sapwood off where necessary and generally looking at what I have. Mostly it's short lengths and the few long bits are bent sideways.
As it happened, Rob a mate of mine had his bow blow up on him, he'd spent ages making it and it looked fine on the tiller, these things happen and it's a small crumb of comfort that he was videoing it at the time. Just before it explodes, you can see the lower limb bending a tad more than the upper, but not alarmingly so. Tiller can change as a bow gets shot in and areas can suddenly appear weak.
I've just found the same thing on my flight bow, where the upper limb suddenly looks weak. Fortunately I'd left it a few pounds over weight and spotted it early. I'd been shooting a few arrows through it at a short draw. I've given it a light rasp and scrape on the lower limb and I think it's just about the right weight now at the 26.25" draw length to suit the flight arrows I've made for testing.

Anyhow Rob asked if I could make a bow for him and I said I'd see what I had in my stash. He's happy to go for Boo backed Yew which will be interesting as I've not done a heavy Warbow like that. (although I did the 120# boo/Yew primitive in January). Boo/Yew is a great combo and the boo is hard wearing too, it can withstand a knock which would put a serious dent in Yew sapwood.
I was expect it to be easy... rip the dodgy sapwood off a stave and get on with it. Ah! When I looked at the staves, one was too short, and the long one had a big sideways bend. I tried to lay out two straight limbs on the bent one, with some degree of success, so I sawed it in half and roughed out two billets on the bandsaw. One limb was still a tad curved sideways and they both had some sapwood showing on one edge. Hmmmm.
To hedge my bets I cut another billet from the short stave, even that was tricky trying to pick the best portion of the stave. So, I've ended up with 3 billets, but after all that I've chosen the two from the original stave! It's taken a lot of fiddling and trimming to lay out two decent billets, but the big advantage is the bamboo backing, which will, being a continuous piece, will support the splice and mean that the splice only has to withstand compression and can thus be rather short, say a 3" Z splice. This buys me a little more length and by putting the splice just below the centre line I can get away with one longer billet and one a little shorter, which is how they happened to turn out. This still gives an 80" bow which will give some wriggle room.
What was, in theory, a simple job turned out a lot more complicated, but like most jobs, the more trouble and preparation that's done early on, pays dividends later. In getting the billets clean and square, hopefully the splice will cut better and fit together without too much trouble. Actually that's another advantage of a shorter splice, it's a bit easier to fettle to get a good fit. In fact, I'd bet good money that with a boo backing you could just butt up two billets and it would work! Of course you'd never try this as any slight bend the wrong way (say when it's lobbed into the back of a car) would just pop open a butt joint.
Anyhow, I'll possibly saw the splices and get 'em glued tonight, cup of tea first!

Making Flight Arrows

I've been making flight arrows for the 50# ELB. I'm making a couple at 26" long first to see how they go, I'll evaluate those for distance and maybe use the shooting machine and slo mo video.
With that in mind I got out my two old cameras, recharged the batteries and thought I'd try them on my tiller mounting point. The tests made me realise why I use my current camera! The Casio Exilim gave much clearer video, but I couldn't get the whole bow in the frame! The old Kodak gave clearer video too, but the auto focus kept jumping back and forth, mind I may investigate to see if there are alternative focus modes in video.I've bought quite a few odds n ends lately and a nice bunch of feathers turned up (ordered off E-bay), they look a bit scruffy, but they have been naturally moulted and are just what I want for fletching.
I also had a nice turned Yew pen arrive in the post, which is a "thank you" for some Yew I gave to a guy up Leicester way (sent up with my mate JT to a Shires Rove shoot, from whence it was collected).

Making the flight arrows is a bit of a fiddle as they become rather delicate once tapered at either end. I put masking tape round the shaft, grip it firmly in the lathe chuck and push it onto my arrow tapering jig to sand it to a taper. I got a bit heavy handed with one shaft and it jammed up, the lathe chuck was nipped a bit to tight and it just twisted the shaft in two!
What I should have done is rough tapered by hand or on the lathe and just used the tapering jig to finish... I've only made the mistake twice now (whoops). Anyhow, I've improved my tool rest for wood turning on the lathe, so I can rough turn tapers etc.



By the way, the XL size shooting glove arrived and it's just the job, I also bought some brass rod for turning flight arrow points. I use brass for the points as it gets a lot of mass into a tiny point and it machines nicely. "But you don't want a lot of mass" I hear you say. 
Ah, no, indeed (I'm in danger of going all Frankie Howerd here.... oooh missus) but you want the mass right at the tip, to get the balance point as far forward as possible so a small heavy point does the job slightly better than a longer one of the same weight. (e.g. An Aluminium point would have to be 3 times the volume to have the same mass. Steel is close enough to brass, but can rust and stainless steel doesn't machine well generally)).The points weigh about about 15-20 grains, and that's enough to move the centre of gravity, (balance point) about 1/2 to 1" forward of the geometric centre.

Buying Stuff

I've been having a bit of a click-fest, got 2 dozen shafts 5/16" 45-50 spine for making flight arrows. A dozen cedar and a dozen pine. Just out of interest I compared them on the kitchen scale and the pine are heavier, so I'll use the cedar for preference assuming, I'll pick out the straightest and stiffest for the flight arrows.
I ordered a bow hand shooting glove with a view to the flight shooting. Its very nice leather and eminently suitable, unfortunately its a tad small and having managed to get it on, I struggled to get it off! I could exchange it, but the postage involved is almost as much as the £5.49 it cost me, so I'll give it to someone at the shoot on Sunday (probably ask for a cuppa and a piece of cake as payment!)
I've ordered the XL size to replace it. I also bought a pair of kevlar gloves which I may use as the base for a hand made bow hand shooting glove by adding thick leather where the arrow will lie and where the hand will need extra protection in the event of arrow failure. I'm sure they'll come in handy for other things too, like splitting logs, pruning and general rough work.

In the workshop I tested the twin syringe epoxy that I got from poundland on a couple of scraps of horn and it is indistinguishable from the usual stuff I get. Talking of horn, a box full arrived that I'd ordered last week, that'll keep me going for a few years.
The other poundland acquisition was a nice chunky calculator which has already proved useful, its got solar cells to to keep it charged, so, no fiddling with batteries, it also has a nice big clear screen and buttons.
All this buying makes me feel a tad guilty spending money on my hobby, but then I got a nice E-mail saying that our solar panels had earned us £158 over the last quarter which is pretty good for the Autumn/Winter... this assuaged my puritanical streak.

I seem to have been doing a lot of videos on Youtube recently and I did one appraising a Yew warbow that one of my friends had bought off the interweb... it has a guest appearance by Emily cat too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoJdKEh6u1o


The flight bow is slowly being inched back and is now just short of the desired draw length at 50#.
I've checked it on my digital scale every 2" of draw up to 24", it gives a very linear force draw graph and interpolates to about 51# @26" (That's 26" measured to the belly of the bow, which is how it's measured for flight if using a 26" arrow).
The extra pound of draw weight gives me a little room for fine tuning the tiller etc.
This video was done just before testing with the digital scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8poiPe1EMA&t=102s

Building a Flight Bow (ELB)

I've finally signed up to go to a flight shoot in May, so I decided to make an English Longbow (ELB) flight bow for the not exceeding 50# category.
This flight shoot is being held under GNAS rules so I checked their definition of an ELB. It's pretty much the usual, but they do allow bamboo and have a minimum length of 66" for a 27"+ draw.
I've set to making a Boo backed Yew bow, using Yew heartwood (heat treated) from the same batch as the last bow I made which had the suspect sapwood.
Flight shooting is a bit odd, because you'll be hard pressed to actually shoot 50# at 28" because the draw length is measured as the arrow length from the bottom of the nock groove to the tip and also to the belly of the bow. This is so that the bow can't be over drawn to pull extra draw weight.
To explain, if you measured in the normal way to the back of the bow as 50# at 28", and the bow had a 2" deep grip, once you'd drawn the tip of the arrow level with the back of the bow, you could continue to draw it another, say, 1.5" gaining about 4# extra as well as the extra 1.5".
There are problems with this arrangement, one being safety... if an arrow jams up against the belly of the bow it will explode when loosed. Also measuring the draw weight at full draw (using draw length to the belly) will possibly over stress the bow. This is overcome by measuring draw weight at 1" and 2" less than the stated draw length and doing the arithmetic to work out the draw weight at the full stated draw.
This arrangement of draw weight/length measurement puts a premium on the skill and nerve of the archer. Effectively the 50# bow will probably only get shot at 48# as I'm not going to risk having an arrow explode into my left hand!
Anyhow, what seems like a simple task becomes more complicated, so the game plan is to build the bow to about 50# at 26" (conventionally measured) initially. Do some test shooting, brace height tuning with various arrows and then work out (guess) the optimum arrow and draw length which will keep me under 50#.
I've just made the string and taken a few scrapes off the middle of the lower (left) limb and it's now at 50# @26" but of course in flight terms that's 50# @ 25.5"


The 2 pics show how tiller has progressed. Note on each pic the two ellipses are the same size, they are moved about so that the vertical axis of the ellipse lines up with where the limb starts at the fade.
The pictures have been rotated slightly to have the bow horizontal, 'cos that's the way MS Paint draws ellipses (with a horizontal and vertical axis).
In the second pic, the horn nocks have been fitted and the tips slimmed. You can see that the extra work has resulted in 2" more draw at the same 50#.

I went shooting up at Now Strike Archery on Sunday and tested it with some 24" flight arrows, the first two were 232yards and landed a foot apart. I opened the nock on the 3rd arrow which had been too tight and tried again with 3 arrows. I was more confident this time and got 230, 239 and 270 yards, it goes to show that getting that elusive clean loose can make a big  difference. I was happy enough with that performance and I'll get it on the tiller again and see how it looks now it's been shot.
I was also hoping to see the Yew backed Yew tested, but the guy I made if for had cricked his neck so couldn't use it. My test pilot JT shot it and said it was good and smooth.

One of the other guys had a warbow which he'd bought on line, and wasn't very happy with, he asked me to put it on the tiller and have a look... he thought the upper limb was stiff.
Here's my take on it:- https://youtu.be/IoJdKEh6u1o

Yew Backed Yew Finished

I think my suspicions about the sapwood on the previous bow being the cause of it's breaking are confirmed. The new bow had heartwood from the same suspect log, but with different sapwood and has made it back to full draw.
It looks very handsome , if slightly odd, with a straight glue line but an undulating back. The horn nocks turned out to be very pale, so much so, that when a light shines through, you can clearly see the underlying wood, its shape and how far it penetrates into the nock.
I've given the bow a sanding and a first wipe of Danish Oil. The string is made, so it will be ready for
shooting in the morning.
Video of the bow on the tiller for the last time here:- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgZ684Nekhc&t=10s

I was up the town the other day and I treated myself to a couple of things for the workshop, a couple of suds brushes, £2 the pair from Wilko, 1 big 1 small, the small one for applying cutting lubricant to the workpiece when using the lathe and the big one for brushing down the lathe afterwards. Got a new calculator from poundland as my old one has digits that are small and fading. Thought I'd try their dual syringe type epoxy too as I've just finished one.

Yew Backed Yew

Following the blow up of the Yew warbow (previous post) due to it having suspect sapwood.
I've sawn the sapwood off the spliced billet stave from the same source of wood. I had planned to bamboo back it, but the guy for whom I'm doing it would rather not have 'boo (a bit booist if you ask me ;-) ).

Anyhow, searching through my stash I found a long thin slice from a Yew log which was virtually all sapwood, complete with bark and decided to back it with that.
It took a deal of careful work on the bandsaw to reduce it to a thin sapwood strip. The strip had some twist in it, and you'd think that, being thin, it would easily strap down flat for gluing. Surprisingly it's still quite stiff in the twist direction, so I did some twist removal with the heat gun and my "limb spanner".
Like most glue ups, the time is all in the preparation, so I got it all as flat and well fitting as possible before gluing, I also protected the nice clean back with masking tape to keep any stray glue off it.
I've got it glued and strapped up, it has a hint of deflex, but that's not a bad thing with heavy bows, I didn't want to start reflexing the tips.
It'll be ready to unwrap tomorrow.

You can see in the last pic, the bark has been popped off by gently flexing the backing strip.
The limb spanner is just made from a scrap of old timber, but provides the leverage to do the job. It doesn't take much force to take out the twist once the wood is hot.

Bugger it Blew!

The Yew bow I've been working on was virtually finished when it blew on the tiller. Daft thing is, it had been pulled to 100# before and since I'd increased the brace height and taken off a tad more it had been exercised to 90 several times and had bed strung all day. Tiller looks fine at 90#, yet it subsequently exploded at about 90#. (at 29" draw) I suspect the sapwood had degraded due to being left on the woodland floor for some time before I got it.
The previous bow from this wood (which had a big knot hole near the

grip) suffered the same fate, I wasn't sure if it was the wood, or the knot that caused the problem. The pic was taken from a video that I didn't publish done earlier in the build.

I have a pair of billets from this wood spliced up. I've sawn off the sapwood and will back it with bamboo, 'cos I can get suckered once, I can get suckered twice... but it won't happen the third time :-)

Video here:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNzD0-Me91c

Then 3 come long at once!

I'd not had much lined up to do, but my mate JT came over on Thursday and wanted to have a go turning wooden blunts on the lathe. I improvised a tool rest and it worked pretty well turning up some Box wood that I had been given years ago, some long waggly, spalted fire damaged stuff that I had no
use for, but was much to good to ignore.

The turning was fun and led me to ordering a couple of screws and some steel to make a decent tool rest and to find out about wood turning too sharpening angles.

Then I got going on the crossbow limbs again and made a new improved solid taper sledge for my thicknesser . Last time I'd used it the wood came out slightly thicker along one edge, and some investigation showed that it was my aluminium adjustable taper sled that was causing the problem by flexing. The new sled was glued up from 3 sheets of MDF, cut on the bandsaw and tidied up on the belt sander. A test on a piece of scrap showed a much truer cut, I checked the thickness along each edge at 3 points, the worst error being 0.004", the other two being 0.002" and 0.000" repectively which seems pretty good.
One slight problem is that it's difficult to accurately measure the thickness of the work once it's glued to the sled and I took off a whisker more than I intended, probably due to haste and backlash in the adjustment mechanism. Having got the limbs machined, I'll be doing much pondering before the next step.

Next thing, I get a facebook message that the much loved 3 RPI (Rings Per Inch) warbow has broken at the grip. I'll do an estimate of how many arrows it's shot as it has been used regularly.
Just asked the chap, he reckons an average of about 80 arrows a week, and it was made in August 2017, that works out to about 6000 arrows, which isn't too bad. It would have got him through a campaign, assuming the dysentery hadn't got him first! Anyhow, hopefully he'll bring it over this afternoon so I can see how bad it is.

Ah, it's just arrived, not repairable, but I'll re-make it as a shorter lower poundage bow. I'll also make a replacement ASAP. Fortunately I have a couple of roughed out staves that may be suitable.
It looks like the back failed with the failure probably starting in the splice at the bottom of the grip where starts to fade into the limb starts . I'll cut it down to make a shorter bow.
Meanwhile I've started on the replacement, roughing it down some more and filling some knots ready to get it on the tiller.

Video here:-
https://youtu.be/cpFv9ODj1wc