Monday 23 June 2014

Yew primitive 60# @ 23"

I had a try with my new camera mounted on the garage wall. I left the garage door shut, so the lighting isn't great. It gives a comparison with the other camera. V similar but maybe a hint better, The old camera has a bigger lens and aperture but fewer pixels. This pic is a still grabbed from video. Looking good, right limb maybe a tad stiff in the outer 1/3.
I should add an unbraced pic really as the bow has a tiny hint of ref just out of the grip, then a hint of deflex.
I'll mull it over and spend some time cleaning up the back before pressing on towards full draw.
Note the lower limb has a black Water-buffalo horn overlay, the upper limb is still just self nocked for now. I did that so I could narrow the limb tip further and I didn't want to risk it splitting the wood.

Spend a good deal of time fussing over the bow narrowing tips, bringing the fade on the lower limb closer in to the grip, opening up an arrow pass a little further up into the upper limb fade.
It's looking good now and would probably take a full draw, but I don't want to pull it past 60#. Currently it's about 60# at 24" so pretty close. (That interpolates to about 72# at 28" so I actually draw it...)
Comparing the tips with my 70# longbow shows it's carrying a lot of extra tip mass. The longbow is about 0.5" circular section where the horn nock starts. This bow is more like 0.6 thick and 0.7" wide, it also gets wider quite quickly. Now I don't want it to look like a Neolithic bow with a  longbow outer 1/3rd grafted on the end, but I will reduce the tips and blend them in, taking the opportunity to keep improving the string-line.
The lower limb looks pretty much dead straight while the upper has a sprinkling of knots and a gentle waggle. The twist near the grip is still evident, but the outers are true and move nicely as it's drawn.
In the pic you can see a fair bit or the heartwood belly showing on the right limb near the grip where the twist exposes it, as you look along the limb, you can see the edge of the limb the same as on the left limb.
I've had a couple of short draw shots and it feels good. back to work for a couple of days, which is good, as it will stop me rushing it. Hopefully I'll have it up to full draw draw by the weekend and I'll try it at the club, I can't wait to see how far it will fling my 'standard' arrow as it's the heaviest primitive I've made.
Update:-
Did a bit more this evening 60# @ 25" and looking a nicer curve to it.

No comments:

Post a Comment