Mollegabet Longbow Complete

I am really pleased with the way this bow has turned out.  Not perfect, but it looks decent and it shoots well.  I have learned a lot building this bow and had a blast doing it.  And that is the point of the entire exercise isn't it?

The paduak handle/riser is the best part in my eyes.  I love the way wood can transform from a fairly plain block to a voluptuous and colorful body that begs to be caressed.

unremarkable block

Improved with curves

before finishing

After finishing

Here you can see the color boost that the finish gives the wood.  I just used a 2 in 1 red oak finish that I purchased from Lowe's for less than 5 bucks.  

The finish highlights a couple of flaws in the woodwork, but the lessons learned will improve the look of the next bow.

Final draw weight is about 45lbs at 28" which makes it a legal hunting bow in Alberta.  Not sure how fast my arrows go, but my wooden arrows are heavy.  The do make a nice resounding 'smack' when they impact the target.

Stay tuned for more bowyer action, I started the tapered longbow while waiting for the finish to dry on this one.

Starting the tapered longbow

Parting shot of the paduak

Ammunition

Been busy since my last post.  The bow is complete and it looks and works great. But let's continue where we left off.

What good is a bow, unless you have something to shoot.  Every bow needs to be 'shot in'.  What that means is that you need to fire some arrows through a bow to get a feel for the bow and how it is performing. There is also a safety factor involved.  Until you put the bow through the stress of shooting arrows you won't know if the bow is safe to use.  I have not had a catastrophic failure of a bow yet, but it is not something you want to have happen if you are selling the bow.  Anyways I am getting sidetracked here.  To shoot in the bow I need some arrows.

A few weeks ago I had purchased some 3/8"  poplar dowels from Lowe's.  I spend a good deal of time looking for straight ones with straight grain.  These are cheap and work well as primitive arrows.  My shooting would be more accurate if I measured the spine bend of the arrows, but seeing as I am doing this on the cheap, I won't for this batch.  Google is your friend right now if you need to learn how to spine your arrows.

My daughter purchased a new couch from Ikea and I acquired the box to use as a paint booth.  I drove the shafts through the top and spray painted the shafts.

After letting the paint dry overnight, I selected 3 of the shafts to complete for this bow.  I cut them to 32" because I have a 27 1/2" draw length and you want the point of the arrow to extend past the bow a bit.  Again, this may or may not be the correct length for accuracy, but I am not really concerned about that right now.  I just want some ammunition for the bow.

Now I need to taper the ends of the shaft, one end at 5 degrees and one at 11 degrees for the point and the nock.  There are several ways to do this.  Some people spend money on fancy sanding jigs or those pencil sharpener like devices.  I came up with a solution, that works pretty good.  I took a piece of card stock and drew 2 lines at those angles from the edge.  I then taped that to the table of my sander and clamped a piece of wood to it along the line for the angle that I want to create.  That's just me being cheap again.

angles drawn

guide clamped in place

Simply keep the shaft pressed firmly against the guide as you rotate and create a nice taper.  Don't sharpen it to a point but make sure the taper is long enough to fit into your point or nock.

Nock tapers at 11 degrees

point tapers at 5 degrees

Once I had the tapers done, I took them inside and used a hotmelt glue gun to attach my field points and plastic nocks. (both quite inexpensive from the Calgary Archery Centre) I have just used the hotmelt glue that I had on hand.  May not be the best for the job, but my points stay on nicely.

Now comes the challenging part; fletching.  As my goal here is to do all this as cheaply as possible, I elected not to buy proper feather fletches from an archery supplier.  Instead I bought a bag of craft feathers from Walmart for $2.99.  Buy the biggest feathers you can if you go this route.  I chose red and yellow feathers again to go with my Ironman color scheme.  Simply split the feathers down the middle of the spine with a utility knife

Go slowly, try to keep the spine even on
both halves.

After I have the feathers split I glued them on with the hot glue.  I then took strips of colored duct tape to fasten the ends of the feathers and put some stripes on the shaft.

3 completed arrows

There are plenty of videos on making arrows on YouTube.  Have a look at them.  At a later date I will make some properly spined and bare shaft tested arrows tuned to the bow.  For now these will work.

Back to the garage for some fun shooting.

Turns out these arrows shoot pretty
straight and I was able to get a nice grouping.

String Theory

Well, not really string theory.  This has nothing to do with quantum physics at all... or at least I don't think so.  There is physics involved, but don't ask me to do any complex math.

Ok. Bow strings.  I have made several bowstrings now and I have got it pretty much figured out.  Again, they are not works or art, but they function well and I have not had one fail yet.

The string is the most important part of any bow.  A string that stretches will not give you the power you need, and a string that is too stiff will cause vibration and in my mind can also damage the bow.  You can make a string out of just about anything from dental floss to sinew fibers.  I have chosen heavy duty polyester sewing thread.  Easy to find, inexpensive and you get strange looks from the ladies in the fabric store.  Modern bowstrings are usually made with B-50 Dacron waxed bow string material.  This is great but not as easy to find locally at a good price.  I have no idea what the breaking strength of my sewing thread is, but I do know that I will cut my fingers wide open if I try to break the stuff by hand.  When I made my first bow string from polyester thread I was worried about it breaking, the only thing I had to go on was some Youtube videos and a general idea of the thickness required.  Strength comes from the number of strands, so to be good and safe I have gone with a 32 strand flemish twist string for this bow.

First things first.  I had to determine the length of my string.  The bow measures 61" nock to nock (nocks are notches in the bow where the string fits in) A string should be about 4" shorter than your nock length (commonly touted number on youtube). To this you need to add length for the loops that go around the bow at the nocks and also for the twisting back on itself to hold the loop in place.  I use 4" for each loop, plus 6" for the return twist.

Math time:  61-4+4+4+6+6 = 77

I found a scrap board lying next to the garage that was about 68" long so I added a couple of pieces of scrap oak with dowels from arrow scraps inserted to make a string jig.  The dowels are 77" apart and you just wrap strands of string around these until you have the desired quantity of strands. Because I am Tony Stark, and Ironman chose gold and red for his suit, I went with gold and red for this string.  16 strands of each.

16 strands of heavy duty red polyester sewing thread
You can see the gold on the table.

once you have 1 color wrapped around give them a good coat of bees wax.  rub it into the string until the strands start sticking together.  More is better.  I got the wax from Micheals.  Standard natural bees wax. (Looks like a block of cheese on the counter, but as I told my daughter, it is not cheese, it is weapon system manufacturing material.)

Bees wax, not cheese

A good thing to have on hand are some small alligator spring clamps.  They are great for holding string so you can twist strands and not get it all tangled into a giant ball of tangles like I did just after I took the picture of the wax in my hand there, when I cut the strings and promptly let a gust of wind have it's way with it.  Sigh.

Clamp to hold string, very handy.

I always cut one end of the string loops and make sure all the lengths are even from the loop at the other dowel.  I then clamp the far end to keep the string from tangling.  I rub in more wax until the strands become stiff and sort of stick together.  I then measure out 10" (4 inch loop and 6 inch twist back) and attach a clamp holding the two colors close together and begin the twisting process.  I twist the red and gold seperately  in a counter clockwise direction then twist them over each other in a clockwise direction (google "how to make a flemish twist bowstring" to see how this works)  The opposite directions of twist are what hold the string in place, just like any twisted fiber rope.

10" of each color clamped and ready to twist

I tend to hum Chuck Berry tunes as I do this.  It is somewhat time consuming and boring otherwise.  Twist the two colors over each other for 4" then turn it back on itself and twist the 4 strands together to make a spliced loop.  Once the first loop is done I use a clamp to hold it in place while I begin the loop at the other end.  By clamping the finished loop, I prevent any twisting I am doing at the opposite end from unraveling the first loop.

2 complete loops ready to string onto bow.

There are several good videos by various people on how to do a flemish twist bowstring.

These 3 vids are what I used to learn the the technique.  Youtube is awsome!

http://youtu.be/wkjiOkAYzc8
http://youtu.be/7RvOwm4wnwU
http://youtu.be/-QjGEldchhU

The beeswax and pressure from the tension when stretched onto the bow is what holds it all together.  Very ingenious technique created many centuries ago.

Once I had the loops made I put the string on the bow.  The string at this point is a bit long only barely bracing the bow to about 3 to 4 inches.  That is enough at this point as all I want to do is stretch the string a bit and wrap serving thread around the loose ends on my loops as well as wrapping serving around the middle of the string where the arrow will otherwise wear and break the string.

I had to do this with a bare spool of serving thread I picked up from the Calgary Archery Centre.  I recommend buying a string server as this will likely speed up and make the process easier.  Slow and steady, patience helps here.

wrapped up loose ends.  Same on other end.

It helps to rub wax into the loose ends to help them stick down as you wrap.  I ended up doing two layers of serving in the middle of the string to build up the thickness so that an arrow nock would 'pop' on.

unstrung bow with served string.
The red bit is a piece of duct tape I am using as a nocking point.

Once the string was served I unstrung the bow and began the process of twisting the entire string until it was short enough to brace the bow at about 6 inches.

Over the evening and this morning I have shot over 100 arrows through the bow.  It is working very nicely.  I had a bit of string stretch, but that was expected so I just twisted the string some more to take up the slack.

Next on my list for this bow is to finish the nocks.  I am thinking I might want to get creative and do something a little different but I am not sure what.  I guess I will have to surf the web a bit to see if there is anything interesting others have done that I could emulate.  After the nocks I will be doing a lot of sanding to get all the rasp marks out then apply a finish. I will likely paint the back of the bow black again, and then apply a natural red oak finish to the belly and handle area.  I may have the back airbrushed as well.

Stay tuned, this bow is almost done.  might be ready to show off at the range by next weekend

Draw Down

Ok folks, been working on the bow for a few more days.  Lost track of the hours but took a bunch of crappy photos.  Lighting in my garage sucks in the evenings.  I culled through them and you will see them here shortly.

I left you with a picture of the first draw to 20 inches in my last post.  From there I slowly worked the limbs down in thickness until I was getting a fairly even bend in both limbs.  I noticed a hinge near the base of what is now my top limb.  I worked it down as much as I could but I really don't want to work the limbs down any further.  I am getting around 45 to 48 pound draw now at 28" (some of you have expressed a need for a glossary of terms.  It will be added shortly in a separate page linked somewhere on the right I believe)

Once I reached this point I smoothed out the limbs with a file and a bit of sanding just to remove any sharp edges that may hamper or damage my bow string later.  So here is what it looks like at 28" draw.  It is not perfect, as I said, but with experience, each bow will look better.

drawn to 28"

I purchased a fishing scale that reads up to 100lbs and has a good T-Bar handle on it and used that to measure the weight of the draw by pulling down on the string to 28".  The scale measures consistently at right around 48lbs when I pull to 28"

My next step was to cut an arrow shelf into the bow.  The reason for this is that with the added wood of the Paduak riser I feel that the handle area will be stiff enough to allow me to shoot my arrows closer to center for more accuracy and I will not have to worry as much about the spine weight of my arrows. (more on that later)  It is still not at exactly center, but it is a bit closer to center than my last bow.

Arrow shelf and block of paduak handle.

 As you can see in the above picture, the handle is still looking more like a brick and is far too wide and sharp to hold.  So I got out the rasp and worked and worked and worked.  The paduak has a really nice smell when you start cutting it.  One of the things I like about working wood, is the aroma of freshly cut wood.  Anyways in about 2 hours I had the final shape done and it fits my hand nicely.  Even my wife said she could use it with her smurf sized hands.

Smoothed out handle.

 Once I had the rough shape worked with the rasp I went and smoothed it out with a file and coarse sand paper.  At this point my arms were tired, and it was dark o'clock so I packed it in for the evening.

Next up, building a string and bringing life to an ancient weapon system.

Pushing Ahead - Part 2

So I went ahead and started the bow.  As I type here, I am quite excited because the bow is now in the tillering process and bending nicely.  But before I get into that, let me show you how I got to this point in the build.

As mentioned in part 1 I used a circular saw to cut the rough shape of the static limbs.  If you have a band saw you can cut the angles as well.

static limb roughed out with circular saw

I then used a rasp to work the rest of the shape

its a bit of work, but goes quick enough

Once I had the general shape of the limbs rasped out I then glued on my piece of Paduak for the handle.  I will work the final shape of the handle after I get the bow tillered.  I am still debating if I am going to cut a shelf or not.  The Paduak is a nice piece of wood. Seems a bit brittle, but will add a nice piece of color contrast to the all oak bow.

Paduak handle with angle cuts

After the glue dried I added the fiberglass tape backing.  The glue for that dried over 36 hours and allowed me to start shaping the working limbs.

Trimmed backing.

To save time I decided to bring out the saw again.  I cut grooves in the board to a depth that left me 3/8 of an inch to work with in the tillering process.  This saved countless hours.  I was able to complete the initital tiller in a single evening as opposed to an entire weekend of rasping.  Once I had the grooves cut I simply broke out the remaining pieces with a putty knife.  Then it was back to the rasp to work it smooth and to work the fades.

Cuts made with circular saw.
A table saw and dado blade would have been awesome

Breaking out the pieces with putty knife

Rasped out and smooth.  Ready for tillering

At this point I cut the rough notches for the tillering string and then did my first few pulls to test weight and draw.  The next step is where I am really still learning.  Tillering is not as easy as it sounds and takes experience and a good eye for curves to get right.

First pull to 20 inches

Stay tuned to see how the tillering goes.  I am not expecting perfection.  My goal is to have a 50 to 60 pound pull at 28".

Pushing ahead. - Part 1

After the challenge I had the other day chasing the ring, I studied the two boards carefully.  The wider 1 x 3 board has a ring that could work, however due to the way the board was sawn, I would likely have a very light bow when finished.  I want a bow with a minimum draw weight of 45 lbs to keep it legal for hunting in Alberta should I choose to use it for that.  So I have decided to proceed with the build with the board as is.  With the fiberglass tape backing it should be a decent bow with decent draw weight, and seeing as this is only bow #2 in my bowyer career I will be happy to get another working bow.

The other board is going to provide a real challenge.  The grain twists and undulates and the one end of the bow has grain run of like you wouldn't believe.  Not sure why I didn't notice this in the store. It may also end up very light, but seeing as it will be a standard tapered long bow any working weight is good for a first go. Anyways that board is going to sit idle while I complete the mollegabet bow.

Once I made the decision I went ahead and marked out the bow as exactly as Mike describes in his youtube series called "How to make a high performance longbow for under $10"

In this video series, Mike uses very few tools to keep the cost down so just about anybody can follow along and build one of these.  As this is my second build of this exact style of bow I took some shortcuts using power tools.

I used a circular saw to cut just outside the lines on the the end static limbs right to the line where the fade starts.  Then all I had to do was rasp away the corners left behind and bring the edges to the lines with a rasp and box plane.  What took me 3-4 hours of rasping on my first bow took about an hour to complete this time around.

I have modified Mike's plan on my bows as I didn't like the feel of the handle.  On my first bow I glued a block of maple on to increase the size of the handle.  This time I went and found a block of Paduak for $3.29 and glued that to the belly side of the handle.

More pics and progress to come in part 2. (handle, fiberglass backing)

Oh Lord, The Rings

Noob tip:  The back of the bow should consist of a single growth ring.  The reason for this is because where growth rings touch is actually where they will want to split when forced to bend.  Google 'making self bows' or do some research on bow failure and you will understand.

I am getting ahead of myself.  As I told you in my previous post, I have a crack developing in my first bow due to the direction of the grain/growth rings on the bow.  Here is a cross section of that board that I sawed off when I started it.

End piece from previous bow.

As you can see the rings go right off of the back and the belly of the board.  The ring in the upper left of the board is where I am having failure.  Probably should not have used this board, but hey, it was bow 1 and now I know better.  

My two new boards are very different:

1 x 2 

1 x 3

As you can see the rings go more or less parallel to the back and belly of the board.  What I want to do is use a single ring as the back of my bow.  To do this; you choose a ring that is intact down the entire length of the board and you cut away all the partial rings above it.  It means your bow will have a slight convex back and will not be flat like a sawn board.  It will look more like a natural piece of log with the bark removed.

As you can see in the 1 x 3 above, there are some 'circles' in the pattern.  These are the separations of the growth rings. The darker areas are transition rings, and the lighter stuff is more solid wood.

Having never done this before I decided to use the 10" on the end of this board to see how one goes about 'chasing the ring'.

 I picked this point as the high point and thought I would work it down even with the first solid ring you can see in the cross section.

Lesson 1: examine the side of the board for grain direction as well.  Turns out this point is NOT the high point like I thought. It is actually part of the ring under the one I wanted as the outer ring.

I was happily cutting away when something didn't seem right with the way the light and dark areas were coming off. Before I figured it out I had cut through that ring and had found the next one. DOH!  Thankfully I was only using the first 10" to practice this.  Anyways I ended up working the wood down to this point.

I also learned that a box plane is not the correct tool for the job. It is what I had on hand but made the finer cuts very difficult.  I need to find a draw knife. I did look this week, but Lowe's and Home Depot are woefully deficient in woodworking hand tools.  And the staff (school age kids) have no clue what I am talking about.  So my projects are on hold until I can get my hands on one that is serviceable.  The antique store near where I work has a rusted up 100 year old knife for $25.  I really don't want to have to restore that one to working order.

draw knife from image search

Stay tuned.  It may be a few days, but once I get the draw knife I'll be rocking an rolling.