Testing the Re-worked Lever bow

 

I tried the re-worked lever bow with some flight arrows, the draw weight is now a bit lower, but the limbs at the splice and levers are lighter. I shot five arrows, mostly at about 280 yards, but one went 313 yards. The best arrows were 27" long at which length the bow is about 60#.
So I'm pretty happy with that distance from a 60# bow. It also shows that the splice can be quite slim and still withstand the shock and leverage. The 28" arrow flew less far than the others, but was a good bit heavier.

Having had one Yew bow explode due to bug damage in the sapwood, I've started another, there are some splits and knots in it, but it's a gorgeous character stave with some natural reflex. I'm going to avoid getting greedy and just aim for 40-45# @ 28", 72" long.

Bug-grrrr

 The big Yew primitive exploded on the tiller while being exercised at about 80#. I was very surprised as a wide thin limb is much lower stress that an narrow thick one.
Anyway I did a post mortem and found some bug damage in the very thin sapwood, there was also an area where the bark had been chaffed through, presumably by a crossing branch, the sapwood there had that blue staining and was noticeably dryer and less waxy than the rest of the sapwood.
I've inspected the other two staves for any bug holes and they seem ok, fingers

crossed.

Big Yew Primitive

I went to a field shoot at Cloth of Gold near Hemel Hempstead  the weather was good for a change (it's been a grim summer so far). As I rolled up there I parked next to my mate Rob who'd brought me 3 interesting yew staves. They were all very nice wood, thin sapwood, nicely defined and dark heartwood, but two were a tad skinny with some tear outs and knots. The third was a half log with a nice waggle in one and and a knot dead centre, that piqued my interest as a big primitive say 80#@ 32" ?
We went off to shoot and I ended up in a different group to Rob, but it's nice to shoot with different people. Our group of 4 had two take down recurves with no sights stabilisers etc, one shooting carbons, the other woodies. The other guy was shooting a Turkish Ottoman style bow using a thumb ring, the bow was glass on wood and very nicely made, ( not one of those cheap Chinese Horsebows, mind they are ok).
I was shooting Twister, my yew primitive.
They all out shot me of course, their flatter trajectories being a considerable help, but when it came to a couple of small targets 6' below our feet and at about 5 yards, I out shot them.
Unloading the staves and having a good look at them, I just couldn't resist starting on the big Yew half log, roughing it out on the bandsaw and then taking the draw knife to the belly. It looked ready for a first try on the tiller, and as I pulled 80# on it the tips moved about 1/4" ! Ha, plenty more wood to come off.

Quick Try Out

The repair to the lever bow has been a success, video here
After that rather long project I felt like a quick try with something that's been on my to-do list for years, a hinged fold up bow.

I bought a couple of stainless steel strap hinges/marine hinges off Ebay and fitted one to an odd miss matched pair of limbs from broken bows. One limb was Ash backed Yew and the other a piece of scrappy Yew, each hinge has three 3/4" countersunk head screws holding it. The purpose of the try out was to see how sloppy the hinge would be and if it would hold a 50# bow. It holds the weight ok, but will need a pin/peg or some sort of locating arrangement to take out some of the slop. The limbs are too mismatched to use as a workable bow, but I may experiment a bit more with ways to get good alignment and maybe grind the hinge down to make it less bulky.

The screws are just "general purpose" but they are twin thread and fairly coarse. I could use a longer screw or go up in diameter.