Shooting and Fencing

I've been shooting a few arrows every day to get in some practise and ease off a stiff neck. I think thwacking away endless arrows at 10 yards is pretty pointless, so I tend to shoot maybe 10 in a session. I also like what I call the 1 arrow challenge. I'll pick a small target and maybe try to vary the shooting position a bit, but only have one arrow with me. It concentrates the mind and can bring surprisingly good results. Of course I can go and retrieve the arrow and have another go if I screw up, but it does add some focus.
The fencing? Ah, I'm repairing about 14 yards of fence between my garden and next door's. It's her fence technically, but I don't mind doing it and going 50/50 on cost. I was thinking it would help build up some fitness. Blimey I'm stiff as a board this morning, I'd twinged a hamstring too by foolishly breaking into a sprint with the sheer exuberance of spring!
Still, no pain, no gain.
Trying to dig out rotten fence posts is a nightmare, fortunately when I did the fence last time (about 14 years ago) I wisely shunned concrete. I'd been designing and planning various post pulling strategies, but when they are rotted off to about 2 foot below ground level it's down to pretty much scrabbling about by hand.
A 3' long length of steel bar with an inch bent over at the end mounted in an electric drill helps stir it up a tad, pretty vicious and needs a good deal of care. I dubbed it my post whacker, which does rather sound like a dubious euphamism. (Don't try this at home boys and girls).
A couple of the posts hadn't rotted so deep, so I managed to scew in a big fat coach bolt, get a rope on it and lever them up and out with my 6' pry bar. Only got one to go, but it's an original post which had ben set in concrete.... that will be hard work.
After tea Daniel Craig and Kiera Knightly dropped by for a few rounds with sabre and foil...
which was nice.

Just Can't Stop Myself!

I'd had enough of making bows for a bit, so I spent some time running errands and sourcing some fence posts on the interweb to repair a fence with rotted posts which had become loose in the recent high winds.

Next thing I know, I seem to have picked up the Ash bow stave and winched it back on the tiller.
It has been sitting on a raditor for a week and had taken a slight sideways bend of about half an inch, it may seem foolhard to have put it on the rad' but I'd read that Ash (like Hickory) needs to be good and dry, it's been well seasoned (at least 2 years). I'll also be heat treating the belly later so some extra warmth won't hurt.
Pulling it back on a string just long enough to get over the ends and taking it to 90# has got it moving almost enough for a shorter string and a low brace. I'm working it hard, but have taken care not to over stress it, as evident from the little bit of natural reflex still being there. I'd left the bark on for protection but I've now taken that and most of the cambium off with my spokeshave. A thin layer of cambium has been left providing some protection for the back and a clean surface for me to mark out if I need to re-draw the centre line at some point (prob' won't need to as it's mostly done by eye now).
I'm hoping to avoid coming in under weight this time, I'm looking for about 85# and hoping for that elusive blisteringly fast flight/warbow. It's the Bowyer's natural optimism that makes 'em think each new bow is going to give a personal best. Maybe it will improve my opinion of Ash too, working it with good sharp tools help and a big bow lends itself to using a plane more.
This article by Jaro Petrina has inspired me to have a go with the Ash.
http://74.209.214.7/~englishw/Making_a_whitewood_longbow.html

Here's a couple of pics of the Hickory backed Yew and the Ash. You can see the Hick' backed Yew still has a tad of back-set/reflex and the Ash still has it's natural reflex. You might just be able to make out the cambium layer on the Ash, and I left a bit of the bark at the centre to act as a reference.
It also shows how I've built up the back of the Hick/Yew with leather to round the grip and make it more comfortable, I'll fit a leather grip over that area sometime.

Great Spring Day

What a great day, glorious sunshine, Brimstone butterflies, Frogs croaking in the pond.
I went up the club to test the Hickory backed bow and the refurbished Yew bow which are V similar draw weight. Mick the blacksmith met me in the car park with a present. I'd been taking about small curved draw knives and spoon carving knives, this had caught his imagination and he'd set about making one for me!
It's a great excuse to use my lathe to turn up some nice handles for it, can't wait to give it a go. He said it's made of EN42 steel. It just the right size for those tricky areas around knots and the dips in back of a bow.
Brilliant, cheers Mick.

The bow testing went well and I threw caution to the wind and took both bows to a full 32" draw, the new bow shot about 10 yards further than the refurbished one, which was to be expected. They both threw a heavyish arrow, 32" 11/32 shaft 150gn point (562 grain total weight) over 200 yards.
I tried my flight arrow from the Hickory backed bow and was surprised to find it only went the same distance?? To my chagrin JT reminded me that I'd paced back an extra 25 yards from the shooting line before I tried it! So it actually gave about 240 yards. The flight arrow weighs 382 grains (for comparison my 'standard' arrow weighs 408gn)
I was slightly disappointed at the flight arrow distance and had to remind myself that the bow which threw that arrow over 300 yards was almost twice the draw weight (100#).
I had been considering taking it to an ILAA shoot next weekend to try it flight shooting, but I think I'll leave it until I have a bow with a bit more weight. I'd managed to shoot round some of the 3D targets with it and feel it's a manageable weight. A sensible top weight for me is probably about 85-90# , mind I'm keen not to go daft and injure myself by trying 100# again. There's a shoot at Avalon (Sandy in Bedfordshire) next week which is a superb venue,so I'll take 'Twister' my primitive Yew bow to that instead.
Update:- I found a nice offcut of Laburnum and turned up some handles, they are rudimentary at the moment, once I get to use it I'll adjust them to a more ergonomic grip, then after a few generations of bowyers have used it they'll get a nice patina.

Whew!

Having left the bow unstrung, the crack closed and became virtually invisible, I felt this was a good sign.
I clamped the bow in the vice with some rubber strapping tied just below the crack so that I could bind it tight very quickly. I flexed the bow to open the crack and flooded it with low viscosity superglue. The  pressure was then reversed to close the gap and the rubber bound round tight.
The strapping came off after a couple of hours, I had to sand it off in places where the rubber has stuck. The hickory back has been thinned and rounded substantially at the edges to try to weaken it a tad the theory being that the load should be evenly spread between back and belly.
I've strung it and flexed it this morning, the draw weight is nicely manageable, but prob lower than I'd hoped.
I'll get some horn nocks on it and hopefully try it out tomorrow.

Update:- The draw weight is a bit low 62# at 28" and about 68# at 30",  I've had it on the tiller, pulling it dynamically and shot it at both 28" and 30" draw. It seems what is technically known as bloody fast but I'll have to shoot it through the chronometer. In actual fact it's probably a fairly sensible weight for me and the fact that it can be flashed back to 30" for flight could be interesting.
The flat back feels nasty in the hand and I'll build it up with something, either wood or leather. Maybe some Yew sapwood.
Anyhow, it's been a good learning experience and a cautionary tale that rushing a bow will almost certainly guarantee you come in under weight.
Update2:- Been shooting it through the chrono', it's about 170 fps which is pretty good. The early cautious shots, prob at 27" draw were about 160. Then I got some consistent readings around 170.
You may wonder why so vague, but it's surprisingly hard to get good consistent readings, I got one over 500 fps and one at 179, They were both miss-reads. The problem is the flexing of the arrow (not such a problem with a modern target bow or a crossbow. It can happen that the middle of the shaft triggers the first optical sensor then the point triggers the second, this would give an unrealistic high reading. Maybe it would be better with the chrono' high up about 30" in front of the bow. There isn't convenient room in the garage to set it up like that with suitable lighting and backstop. maybe I'll try to do it sometime. Better to set it up out doors in daylight, then I'd just need the backstop.

Hickory Backed Yew - Damn!

The guy came over to collect the Spliced Billet Yew longbow yesterday. The draw weight and length was just right and he was very happy with it. He felt it was fast compare to his previous bow. We had a play with my Chinese repeater and some other bows which was most enjoyable.
I made a bit of a mess up, I'd hurriedly tried to take some video of him shooting but managed to somehow screw it up, having not used the camera for a few weeks. Dunno if I took no pics or just 1 second of video, or it got lost when I tried to download it. I even searched the PC for *.mov files... Nope, no sign of 'em. Not only that, but I had a golden opportunity to get rid of some of my sacks of firewood as he had a wood burner... of course with the fun of trying the bows we both forgot.
Anyhow, no harm done, and he was really pleased with the bow, saying it looked better close up than it did in the pictures.
I'm pressing on fast with the Hickory backed Yew, as it is dead flat on the back it is much easier to measure, mark up and work than a natural stave. I've even been using my plane on it, which is a tool I rarely use. I've made a good deal of use of the belt sander too.
It had a fair bit of natural reflex, but I glued in some extra too. I expect most will pull out during tillering.

I s'pose I should say what I'm aiming for... hmmm... how about 85-90# at 30" ? I feel that's enough weight without hurting my shoulders and 30" is about my maximum comfortable medieval style draw. I hope to get it shootable for Sunday.
I've had it pulled back on a long string at 80#, (see pics)

the tips are back far enough to get it braced. Time to adjust the tiller a bit and get a shorter string on it.

Update:- Damn, got the shorter string on it at a low brace and was rapidly working my way up to 80#, I heard a couple of ominous 'tic' noises, was it the string moving in the nock? There was no explosion, but the draw weight seemed to have come down a bit. On investigation I found the Yew had buckled on the belly about  3/4 of the way down the lower limb. The temptation is to flood it with superglue and bind it, but I'm not sure, it may be better to glue in a patch. Mind it will be tricky to patch it with the Hickory backing there. It just goes to show there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip. They always fail as you get near full draw, hmm just nature's way of stopping me getty too cocky and complacent. D'oh!
Mind it's an interesting failure, I've not seen Yew do that before, maybe the Hickory back was too strong for it? I'm not giving up on it, but maybe I'll be shooting for a slightly lower draw weight now.

Spliced Yew Finished, Pics.

I've done the arrow plate, a nice big slab of Mother of Pearl, it looks great against the black leather grip.
I'm very pleased with how it looks, the billets not being matched hasn't spoiled the look, the two limbs have their own character but the colour looks remarkably similar and the overall look and feel is great.
Ill let the pics do the talking.

I've got the refurbished bow finished too.
Now I'm now hoping to get the Hickory back glued onto the Yew belly for my flight/warbow this afternoon and maybe rough out an Ash warbow for one of the guys at the club.
I've had to strip down and adjust the bandsaw as it wasn't running true. Ash is V hard on a saw, so I wanted to fit a new blade and get it in top fettle before trying to cut.

Update:-
I've roughed out the Ash, leaving the bark on the back as it's not too thick and it's V smooth, it will doubtless pop off during tillering. The time spent adjusting the bandsaw and fitting a new coarse blade (3tpi alternate set) was well worth it. It cut slow and steady, nice and clean. I'll have a breather and then rough out the thickness. I spent some time setting up for the first cut, angling the table so that I'd be cutting a flat face parallel to the back of the bow (the bark of the tree). I'd started with a quarter of a log so it was V shaped. That first cut took off the point of the V giving me a flat surface to rest on the table for the next two cuts which gave the basic shape of the bow. 40mm wide for a foot either side of the centre line and then tapering to 30mm at the tips. That leaves plenty of width to play with, this is only roughing out. It's about 43mm thick along the whole stave at the moment, tapering that will be the next step.

Oh, I forgot to say I got the Hickory back glued onto the Yew belly before lunch, so I've been a busy bowyer. Back to the day job tomorrow, so it's good to get plenty of fun stuff under my belt today.

Repaired Yew Bow & Testing The Spliced Bow

It's been a busy couple of days, the more work I did on the repair bow, the more I wanted to give the sorry thing a new lease of life. I'd already removed a good bit from the last third of the top limb and some from the end of the lower
I was given carte blanche to go ahead and experiment in an attempt to revitalise it.
I heat treated and straightened the inner half of each limb. While I was at it I noticed the bow was actually about 0.5 mm thinner at the end of the grip than it was for the next few inches up the limb! That is just madness, so I rasped off the high spot and blended it all in. I also noticed a knot with a semicircular pinch alongside it. I though I'd pick at the knot and fill it if it was weak.

During heat treatment it became obvious the knot was loose and it popped out.
I'll let you see the results from the before and after pics and judge the results for yourself.
The tiller is much better, still not quite as circular as I'd like but it's a wise man who knows when to quit.
If you compare it with the picture from a few posts back http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-wisdom-of-waiting.html it's the same draw length and you'll see the draw weight is actually a whisker higher and the tiller is much better. I've noticed that it was being shot with the arrow pass actually on the grip, I realised why when I measured and found the grip was dead centre rather than 1" above and 3" below the centre line. So the nocking point and arrow pass made sense.
The difference is very obvious when trying to string it... I can't ! I've had to cut grooves for a stringer into the horn nocks, while I was at it I removed more dead weight from the nocks, they were riduculously oversized.

This morning I took the spliced Yew bow to the club and shot 18 3D targets and also shot it for distance. I had planned on taking a flight arrow but forgot.
It shot my standard arrow about 160 yards and the 30" ones a few paces more. I think it would have made the 180 yards for clout with flight arrows. 

Shooting at the 3Ds in the woods the bow performed really well and I shot pretty much as I would with my regular field bow 'Twister' . One of the other guys shot it too and was impressed. I took some of the shots with the longer arrows which felt odd as my anchor was near my right shoulder... I still got a couple of hits like that.