Smashed or is it?

 I lightened the levers of the lever bow considerably but when I pulled it back on the tiller, the string didn't want to return correctly between the string catcher ears. I carefully removed wood at the tips to get the string returning true and finally tried a couple of test shots. On the third it went BANG... the string had missed the lever and the bow limbs had overshot and bent the wrong way breaking the yew belly. It was a fairly clean break starting at a point where I'd let in a small block to replace a patch of manky black wood on the corner of belly and side. The yew had lifted from the bamboo over an inch or so. Short video showing it being shot successfully, and the detail of the break

On careful inspection I decided to try a repair. The bamboo was sound and the bow hadn't bent too far back, the belly was mostly a clean crack at 45 degrees across. I opened up the cracks by flexing the wrong way slightly and flooding it with Cascamite. By flexing it back and forth the glue was getting pumped into the gaps. The bow was then put up on the tiller and drawn to a slight tension. I could see a slight gap between the bamboo and the Yew so I added a couple of clamps.

The bow has been braced no, but I noticed a little damage to the tip of the top nock. I'll need to re-shape the tips anyway to accommodate the change in string loops which will make the string sit at a different angle.

The Bamboo back was protected with masking tape before I started the gluing, and for clamping I have some plywood blocks that have a nice curve on one face specifically for clamping bamboo backs. The belly side was protected with a scraps of thin plywood.
This morning I tok the bow down and cleaned up the repair, it looks pretty good. I may chisel out a long narrow groove and let in a length of Yew to act as a key across the gap, but maybe not.
I'll probably reduce the draw weight and the experiment with other ways of getting the string to track... longer string loops which run down either side of the levers, being one.

Lever Bow and stuff

 

The lever bow now has horn nock inserts and I've had 3 test shots, it was tough to draw and a reluctance to explode it also came into play... I think I got it back about 25". I was shooting my 11/32" 100gn point arrows and they flew nicely, I didn't measure the distance as it was just test shots, but it looked pretty good. I've since been slimming the tips and the V splice. I took off the binding and re-did it at either end of the V, in the way that, if you were trying to bind two sticks together you'd overlap them and then bind at each end of the overlap. A single binding in the middle wouldn't stop them hinging like a pair of scissors. Video of a test shot

I've cleaned up the Bamboo back, rounded the corners and cleaned up some of the tool marks off the belly. The tiller has been tweaked since the last video in which the left limb was a tad stiff. I can string it with a conventional stringer now which is much more convenient, although the stringer grooves had to be shaped quite deep to allow for the acute lever angle.
The flight arrow I made for a facebook friend didn't seem to do the job being very noisy. My suspicion is that the bow is made for reliability and throwing heavy arrows when roving, rather than flight shooting. Apparently the arrow seemed to match a 90# bow somewhat better.

I've booked in to a field shoot on July 11th which will be my first for over a year, really looking forward to it. I've booked an 8:30 starting slot too, which will hopefully get us away before the compounders start twiddling and fiddling.

The 110# Yew character warbow was handed to it's new owner, but he could only get it to about 27" draw... hopefully by next Sunday he'll be able to work it harder and see how he likes it.

Yew Bow Explodes on the Tiller

 

Damn, having theoretically proved the wood from some logs by making and shooting the billet bow I was working on a slightly heavier one for the guy who brought over the logs. It looked like much cleaner wood but had a waggle in one limb... it turns out the waggle had rather swirling grain and it exploded there at a fairly modest bend at 80#.
Just goes to show you can't really be certain until the bow is finished.

I've finished the 110# @31" warbow and done a nice video showing the character detail 

Tricky Yew Bow 110# @31"

 This bow has been a huge amount of work to lay iit out in the half log, an I still had to work round a big knot, fill 3 others, work around and area of tear out from where the log had been spilt and do some steam bending, heat treating and cutting a bit off one limb. Other than that it was plain sailing ;-)
Here's the video where it finally gets to full draw:-

Heavy Bow Flight Arrow

 

Pic shows a warbow arrow, flight arrow for 110# @30" bow and a flight arrow for a 50# @ 28" ELB
The flight arrow for the 110# is the one I've just finished for a friend it is somewhat heavier than I'd normally make for a heavy bow, it's also stiffer spine as I got some nice stiff 3/8" (approx) pine shafts. I saw 'em about a year ago online and bought 'em while I could.
Anyhow here are some specs.
Max dia 9.7mm tapering to 6.6 mm at the point and 8.3 at the nock. Note, thickest point is between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way from the nock end.
Hardwood footing (Cumaru?) with a brass point, turned with a  3mm pin (about 30mm long) at the back which is glued into a corresponding hole in the footing.
The spine is about 110# , I had to do some calibrating of my spine tester as I don't usually get 'em this stiff. The fletchings goose feather 40mm long and 6mm high.
I posted it off today so hopefully it will get tried at the weekend or early next week.
The bow is a 110# "Barbarian" from Hillbilly Bows, a one piece glass on wood design with some reflex at the tips and no arrow shelf or cutaway.
It will be interesting to see if it extends his PB :-)

I've also done some more on the Boo/Yew heavy lever bow:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZOn5a_bBaY
The Force/Draw curve shows it should reach about 85# @27" which is too much for me at the moment as I struggled with 75# @ 28" at the weekend. The early draw weight also makes it feel like it is heavier. I've added a line to interpret it to 28". If you continued the line from before the levers come it it would be somewhere near 130# (vertical axis is pounds, horizontal axis inches). The kink in F/D curve is where the string lifts off the levers.
I've since pulled it to 24", so it's not far off now. Next ting is to start narrowing the levers and doing some fiddling and fettling of the tiller, rounding corners etc.