Shooting the Billet Bow and a Flight Arrow

 I got out roving on Sunday, glorious weather, good company. I shot the scruffy character Yew billet bow, I was pleasantly surprised. The bow is physically heavy and I was struggling a bit with the draw weight, my left elbow was threatening to collapse. I was overshooting the marks most of the time, mind I was shooting fairly light arrows, (11/32" shafts) 440 grains, so that's about 5.8 grains per pound. I didn't try my heavier "pretend medieval" 3/8" jobs as they are 32" long and I didn't want to risk overdrawing the bow as it is only made as a 28" draw.

Now this all links in with one those "friends I've never actually met", who posted a pic of himself shooting a 110# one piece recurve and getting a new PB (321yards). I congratulated him, but thought he should be getting even more distance as it has a fibreglass back and belly. Anyway rather than criticise I offered to make him a flight arrow which will be of interest to both of us.
The bow's maker suggests 60 gram as a minimum for regular shooting but lighter is ok for occasional flight shooting.I hate grams so I'll convert to grains, that's 926 grains (8.4 gpp). The flight arrow he used was 53 grams (818 grain, 7.4 gpp) with a spine of 200# and a max diameter of 1/2"
I could see a few potential areas to gain some distance, but would it actually work?
My experience with flight arrows has led me to a few conclusions, none of which I can guarantee to be right, 'cos that's the beauty of flight archery!

1. The stiffest part of the arrow needs to be about 1/3 of the way from the nock, because it only really needs to flex hard round the bow once it's moved about 1/2 - 2/3 of it's length (assuming a bow that's not cut away at the arrow pass). Maximum sideways deflection being just before it leaves the string. The front of the arrow does very little except stop it falling off your hand and give you somewhere to fit the point, but needs to be strong enough to withstand the impact of landing and hitting the particular stone you are aiming at ;-)
2. Fletchings should be only just big enough to do the job. It's notoriously difficult to actually test for this even with recourse to a shooting machine and high speed photography. The fletchings should have their vanes sanded down to almost nothing and once glued on, should be sanded to blend in at the leading edge. I think any sort of binding is just an air brake!
3. The weight distribution is a contentious issue. Some will say the centre of mass (balance point) should be just behind centre. I have seen such arrows fly in an extremely erratic and dangerous manner, so I keep the balance point just slightly forward of the geometric centre.(about 2% front of centre)
http://archerycalculator.com/arrow-front-of-center-foc-calculator/
This also ties in to the previous point about fletching size.
4.The nock should also be tapered and blended to be as aerodynamic as possible. It will doubtless be reinforced with horn, but any extra binding should be as minimal and smooth as possible.

Possibly the most important part of any flight shot is that elusive clean loose, I've shot loads of arrows and they'd be grouped at a similar distance, except one which would be another 30 yards down range! Repeat the exercise, and next time that magic arrow will be in amongst the others!
Testing one bow which I'd modified, the results were disappointing, I was about to go, and thought... one last shot! You guessed it, 30 yards extra!

I've already started on an arrow, footing a length of 10mm diameter pine shaft that's about 90 spine.
I also searched out some particularly tight grain old pine that I'd sawn into arrow blanks. Now my lathe will only hold 10mm / 3/8" through the headstock so for ages I've been toying with the idea of a special arrow turning lathe. That's giving me another project to think about and tinker with while the glue of the footing is curing.

Arrow Lathe update:- The more I thought about it, the dafter it seemed! An arrow it too long to turn unsupported, so using the tools I already have gives me a maximum reasonable working length to turn.
I've just tried it! Especially with a pine shaft (even a tight grained stiff one). I have a movable toolrest for wood turning and it seems to work pretty well. It gives me about 9" between centres, but I could squeeze that out to 10" which is enough to do the rough tapering. It's certainly enough to do the nock end of the arrow. The arrow taper jig, or just using sandpaper while it is spinning, hanging out the back end of the lathe will finish the job. 
It's one of those slow jobs that is easily ruined by trying to save time!
Note to self:- Further experiment, I reckon I can get a more controlled taper using it in a normal metal cutting configuration, just carefully feeding in the cross slide ever so slightly as I wind the cutter along the length of the shaft (about 2 thou on the cross slide for every 2 turns on the leadscrew )... that and the taper jig gives a nice controllable taper... better than ruining a shaft.

ELB from Scruffy Yew Billets

 A couple of weeks back one of the guys, Don, from the club brought over 2 Yew logs. I sawed 'em into staves and a pair of billets. The wood looked a bit iffy, having blue grey streaks and poorly defined sapwood.
I tried an off-cut under the draw knife and the sapwood felt lovely, nice and creamy, like a nice cheddar!
having sawn the billets, I thought I'd splice 'em together, going for a 4 1/2" long Z splice. having done that I sort of carried on, until I'd finished the bow. I made it to about the right spec' for Don, although he may prefer a bow from a single stave that's not quite so long. 
This one ended up 75" nock to nock, 75# @ 28" I made it long to allow for a slightly stiff grip and all the knots. there was one big knot in the upper limb that had some rot, but as I dug it out I realised it might well become a nice feature as it had some burr figure in it.
Enough chat, here are some pics.

Tip Repair Finished

 The tip had completely sheared off the bow due to the swirling grain going across at about 30 degrees, shooting light flight arrows probably didn't help grain. The end glued back on nicely with the break interlocking strongly, a back patch and a strip laid into the belly completed the repair.
It's not been tested yet, as I may reduce the draw weight by 5-10# (it was 80# @ 28").

The previous post shows the break and the repair in progress.

Video of how I did the repair :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofeTV4KWuJw
 

Repair Progress & Stuff

 I seem to have multiple jobs on the go. The repair to the Character Yew ELB broken tip is coming along, I flattened the back to take a patch, cut a slip of sapwood with some natural curve to it and the steam bent it to fit (I videoed some the process and will post a video of the entire repair eventually). That glued up nicely. I've already started chiselling the groove on the belly with a tiny chisel made from a ground down needle file. It's hard slow work, but once the groove is started it gets easier.

Cutting a straight groove on a curved surface is tricky and I can really feel the area where the grain runs diagonal, it is noticeably harder.
This sort of repair is maybe a bit bonkers and probably not "cost effective" in modern fiscal terms, but that's not why I do it! I do it for the challenge, to extend my knowledge of what is possible and to keep a bow shooting. I'll probably get a bottle of wine for my trouble which suits me fine... I wouldn't be happy if I didn't have stuff to tinker with.

One of the guys brought over a couple of Yew logs, I'll be making him a bow from the Yew. They are very well seasoned and surprisingly light (compared with an unseasoned log). Unfortunately it won't quite fit under the bandsaw. Now I could make some cross cuts on the knotty side and chop away some of the timber, or I could spend a similar amount of time and less effort making a new upper blade-guide for the bandsaw, which will increase the available depth of cut (height available) by about 2". The blade guides will be Lignum vitae, with a ball race behind the blade to take the load.

Talking of Yew, I think I did some sanding without my mask on and it's induced a nasty cough, or maybe it's the pollen. It's getting rather irritating and I was up at 6 o'clock this morning as it was niggling me. It's fine once I get working and distracted. No point lying in bed trying not to cough! On the plus side at least I don't have toothache ;-)
It does make me a tad anxious about working with yew, as, even with a mask and dust extractor, the garage is a rather dusty environment, and too cluttered to be easy to keep dust free.

More Repair Jobs

 The Elm bow I repaired the other week, has stood up to a day's roving. But I've got another couple of jobs, one is a boo backed Yew by a Canadian Bowyer (Jamie from Ravenbeak), so it's not practical to send it to him for repair. It's a crack on the belly, I'll let in a patch. It's a nice looking bow, so it will be good to keep it is shooting order.
The next repair was Another bow, from a slightly dodgy character Yew stave that I made some time back for my mate JD (not to be confused with JT!)... iI was a sort of bonus Austrian Yew stave, an off-cut from the side of a stave that was thrown in with some others as barely useable. It's fairly heavy 80#@ 28" and he was testing it as a flight bow at a 24" draw (the light arrows can be a bit harsh on a bow). The tip snapped off, where there a bog swirl/undulation on the grain. I recon I'll be able to glue it back together and than overlay a patch of sapwood on the back, and chisel out a substantial groove in the belly for a slat of timber (maybe Boo?)
It's interesting to see what is salvageable and it enhances my skills, I recon a lot of bows get discarded because people just don't know what can or can't be repaired.
The break is very instructive as it shows that although I've tried to follow the flow of the grain as it curves up and down back to belly, I haven't managed to follow the sideways flow.
I've got the two parts glued and strapped, I'll see how it looks tomorrow when the glue has cured. The two pieces pushed together nicely.