The Craftmans Shop > Backyard Ballistics
Fibreglass laminated longbow - how to build
jcs0001:
Gerald:
No it's uni directional glass and not very flexible sideways. I assume the boat building glass you are talking about is the woven cloth or something similar.
There may be other brands out there but most of what is available here is Gordon bow tuff which is strictly meant for bows (as far as I know it doesn't have any other purpose but you never know).
John.
steamboatmodel:
Thanks John,
I looked at http://www.gordoncomposites.com/index.htm
Doing the limbs is a lot more complicated then I thought.
Regards,
Gerald.
jcs0001:
Gerald:
The way I have described is equipment intensive however works well and is efficient. The first few bows I made were made with a bottom mold only and used rubber bands to hold the laminations down to the mold. We used some pieces of inner tube to make the bands and used a plywood heat box with about 4 - 100 watt bulbs to heat it for a few hours. There are a lot of simple ways as this is just laminating wood - some use a 2x4 to make a form etc.
If you want to start out small it isn't too complex.
John.
jcs0001:
Gentlemen:
Just an update as I realize I have not provided photos of the finished product. My friend (who has the bow) has been working out of town for some months and I haven't had a chance to get photos. It will likely be worn out by the time he gets back as he does a lot of shooting. ::)
John.
jcs0001:
I finally got together with my friend and got a few photos. He had been working away from the area for quite a while and when he came home had about a 2 month "honey do" list.
We actually built two longbows about the same time so I will show a couple of photos of each. Note that one has snakeskin on the back.
The first bow (1st two photos) was sold this summer by my friend but he has kept the 2nd one (snakeskin backed) and has had several successful hunts with it.
We are in the planning stages for another two or three - I will build a takedown recurve for myself and my friend wants at least one longbow. Just like tools there are never enough.
John.
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