Sailors and their toys

[BeauV]

I know a heap of Porsche jokes from when I drove one. For some reason folks kept telling them to me:

- How can you tell a Porsche from a porcupine? The porcupine has the pricks on the outside! DA DUM, CRASH!
- Porsches are like hemorrhoids, eventually ever ass-hole gets one! DA DUM, DA DUM, CRASH!!

I'll get back to work on boats now.....

[SloopJonB]

Those are also Corvette jokes.

[cap10ed]

Don’t toss your fathers camera equipment away . If you find your self with less cash then expected after Xmas, you can utilize this technique to duplicate that GoPro look for your car classic shots you share with family. Give it a whirl and get back to us with some film work.

[BeauV]

Don’t toss your fathers camera equipment away . If you find your self with less cash then expected after Xmas, you can utilize this technique to duplicate that GoPro look for your car classic shots you share with family. Give it a whirl and get back to us with some film work.

I LOVE THE DIAPERS - there for the obvious reason!

[Ish]

A friend of mine was a cameraman, he used to cover bike, running, and motorcycle races. He says you eventually get used to sitting backwards on a motorcycle with a large camera occupying both your hands.

[cap10ed]

I picked up a nice basic longbow this weekend. Ever since reading a book by Saxton Temple Pope written in the 1920's I wanted to try a longbow. When I saw a used one in nice shape I made it mine.

I need to man up a bit to hold a draw with it but a dang good fun. 68" and around 65# at my draw.

Cheaper than cars!

ml10.gif

Derek I found a stand of Osage Orange tree’s. What I didn’t know was the quality of this wood for Bow construction. It would cost you a horse and a blanket in the day to get a bow made from this hard wood. Burns long and hard and was used in the Dust bowl era to curtail soil erosion. 18,000 mi of Osage Orange hedges were planted.

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl&imgr ... CAgQsCUoAg

[Cherie320]

We have seen wooden boats, bows, and bikes, but the wooden cars just keep on comming. Stored away for 100 years, the original Porsche prototype. Who would have guessed?

[Rasp]

Wouldn't Osage Orange be appropriate for the tiller on the Francis Lee. I'm sure the tiller Maestro must be about done, but I wish that this option had come up earlier. Truly a noble wood species and worthy of the FL.

[kimbottles]

Wouldn't Osage Orange be appropriate for the tiller on the Francis Lee. I'm sure the tiller Maestro must be about done, but I wish that this option had come up earlier. Truly a noble wood species and worthy of the FL.

The tiller master is making a test tiller to make sure we like the shape and feel.

Then the real tiller will be laminated Cherry and Ash each with tapered lamination.

[Rasp]

That sounds delicious. When I was a young aspiring joiner, I made the biggest investment to date of my life by buying a fine batch of ash and used it over the next couple of years on a number of woodworking projects. Tough and resilient, and it will be a perfect compliment to the cherry in your tiller. Can't wait to see the final result.

[BeauV]

The central backbone of my wooden bike is ash, as is the wooden subframe in my morgan car. From my point of view, ash is one of the truly great woods.

[Rasp]

Beau,

I remember your wooden bike frame. That was a beauty. Have you seen the bamboo bike frames. For some reason, this bow maker doesn't like ash, claims it breaks too easily. I suspect that his opinion is much like how carbon fails, not easily but with no warning and is usually completely catastrophic. The bow builders revere osage for its compression strength and there is a comment of the wonderful smell as well. Hope this pastes in well, I'll include the page link as well.

http://poorfolkbows.com/woods.htm

Looks like an interesting site. It is all about balancing the laminates with the different woods placed in the places where they offer their relative strengths best.

Rasp

Bow woods

There are bow woods I've tried and bow woods I haven't tried. This is a list of bow woods (and grass in the case of bamboo) I've tried or heard a lot about. I'm only considering limb wood material, not handle wood material. Don't limit yourself, though. People are trying new things all the time.

Red oak

The great thing about red oak is that it's easy to find and it's cheap. It's ideal for somebody who is just starting out. Just about every Home Depot or Lowes I've been to has it. They sell it in the perfect size, too. It comes in a 72" long board they call a 1x2, which is actually 3/4 x 1-1/2. Red oak is very porous, and most of the pores are in the early growth rings, so it's important to find a piece with thick late growth rings or else it will seem brittle. Those boards will feel heavier. If you find a board with very straight grain, you don't necessarily need to back it, but it's a good idea to back any board bow.

Bamboo

The wonderful thing about bamboo is that you're guaranteed to have straight grain. Bamboo bows rarely fail if done right. Some people call bamboo nature's fiberglass. It's great bow material, and it's cheap. Bamboo comes in different forms—raw bamboo and bamboo flooring boards.

If you get the flooring boards, be sure to get vertical grain. The horizontal grain will come apart. Bamboo flooring makes a great bow if backed with raw bamboo. All bamboo bows are my personal favourite. They're quieter than any other bow I've made, and there's just something about the way they feel when you draw them and shoot them that's hard to describe. There's a smoothness about them. The only bad thing I have to say about bamboo bows is that they take a lot of set. It's a good idea to put a lot of reflex in the bow at glue-up if you want to have any left after tillering.

Vertical grain flooring boards can also be cut into laminations. People sometimes refer to it as "action boo." It's ideal in the core of a fiberglass bow, because it's light and strong.

Raw bamboo is just a slice of a solid piece of bamboo with the nodes still intact. It makes a great backing to almost any kind of bow. Bamboo is very strong in tinsel strength, so it needs to be very thin to avoid overpowering the belly wood. Some woods that are good with raw bamboo backing include osage, yew, ipe, and bamboo, because they can withstand the compression forces.

Hickory

Hickory is popular for backing bows. Like bamboo, it's very strong in tinsel strength, so it needs to be thin. It's not quite as strong in compression strength. It makes a good self bow, too. I haven't made a self bow out of it, but from what I've read, it's almost impossible to break. Some people question its durability, though. Apparently, it takes a lot of set over time and becomes sluggish. I think this may be due to the fact that hickory sucks up a lot of moisture from the atmosphere. It needs to be a tad dryer than other woods to get the best performance out of it. The only problem with using it to make a self bow is that it's almost impossible to get the bark off of it. I've heard several different methods, the most popular being to put it in a hot shower for 20 or 30 minutes before trying to get the bark off with a chisel.

Osage

Some people consider osage (bois d'ark) to be a weed, but to those of us who make bows, it's gold. I love everything about osage except for the fact that it's hard to find a straight piece of it without knots. It smells good, it looks good, and it's the ideal bow wood. It lasts forever without taking a set, and it's very strong in compression strength. I can't say enough about osage. I just love it. If only it were easier to come by!

Ipe

It's pronounced EE-pay. It's the same thing as Brazilian walnut. It's very strong, so you can make thinner and lighter limbs, resulting in a faster bow. It goes well with a bamboo backing. Ipe is used in decks, because it's so resistant to decay. That makes it a good bow wood, too. Some people have allergic reactions to it, so beware.

Ash

I hate ash. I don't know why anybody bothers with it. It breaks too easily.

[Ish]

What's the word on yew? Only good for longbows?

[Rasp]

Funny that yew should ask...

Yew

I haven't tried this one either. Yew is supposed to be ideal for making longbows, because it's so strong in compression that it's one of the few woods that can withstand the D-shaped cross section of an English longbow. The problem with it is that it's too expensive.

Sorry about the pun, I couldn't resist, could yew?