Emile's new longbow!

[Windknot]

I'm almost done with a "Hilly" LB for a friend's son- just need to do the final sanding and to spray it.

I used Zebra for the riser, and horizontal 'boo flooring for the limbs. It's about 36" NtN, and it spits those little darts- first one flew WAAAY over the target, then I stopped holding over.

Just click on the link and scroll down- yup, that T-bird's pretty and if I could build bows like that I could give up my day job.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ourstaffords/Tbird.htm

Enjoy,

Jakes

[BowDonkey]

Awesome album. That longbow with the red lamination is a real eyecatcher. I loved the pictures of the park and the countryside in general. Are those goats native or feral? It was sporting some nice headgear. Any chance of sneaking a bow into the park? LOL! I bet having girls like that around the burglaries at your place is nil. Nice looking dogs. Thanks for sharing all those pictures.

[Windknot]

Thanks Bowdonkey- We had great fun test driving the Mini bow at the field range- I just ran it over a chrono- 120fps with those little darts!

The goats are feral, they're a nuisance, and they're going to be culled as soon as the bunny huggers look the other way. I'm seriously thinking of taking a bow and some blunts the next time I go to Exmoor- the place is overrun with pheasants. Pheasant shooting and deer stalking is big business on Exmoor btw- 'National Park' over here basically means no shopping malls, development, Mc Donalds or intensive agriculture- not a wildlife preserve like Yellowstone or the Kruger National Park in South Africa.

The bow with the red lam is a Chek-Mate Thunderbird- real sweet shooter.

Glad you enjoyed the pics.

Jakes

[cthorness]

Wonderful work Windknot, would you be willing to share the dimensions of the little bow with us? I know you said 36"NTN, I am thinking of building one for my buddy's little girl and that one you made looked pretty good. Thanks

[Windknot]

Ooh, dimensions- the back lam was just over 1/4" thick, the belly lams were around 1/16", and the riser is about 5" from fadeout to fadeout. The limbs started at about one inch wide, and ended at about 7/8"

I cut the lams on my bandsaw and ground them with a diy lam grinder- I did everything by eyeball- the only time I measured anything was to find the centres of the back lamination and the riser to line them up.

I used a laminating epoxy to glue the bow up- substitute EA-40 or West Systems or Urac. When using laminating epoxy I add 3-4% microfibres to thicken it up. I used a pegboard and handfuls of rubber bands- I got great glue lines, so that worked out OK.

I didn't tiller the bow- just strung it up, found the stronger limb and cut the window.

The length of the bow was determined by the length the flooring boards- I get around 37" out of them. I used the horizontal flooring, but the vertical boards are better IMHO. The horizontal boards seem to have voids in them, that the vertical ones don't. Doesn't matter for kid's bows, but it becomes a factor if you want a full sized bow.

I hope this helps- drop me a line if you have any more Q's

Jakes

[cthorness]

Thanks Jakes,
I have done a few full sized bows in the fashion you describe (more or less) just never a kids bow. Sounds like a good time. Thanks again for your advice.