airwolf

I used to have two very short, 60", Hill take downs. I found myself missing them, especially when the time came to fly to Texas for a javelina hunt and I had to ship a longbow down and back. I should say I missed having a take down longbow, since any more I find I mostly shoot my own bows. I knew that one day I would build a take down but I really held off because the work of building a sleeved version somehow didn't appeal to me. One of the members of Pirates of Archery posted a one piece to two piece longbow conversion he did using the Connexion hinge and I decided to pursue the matter further. I had had a Black Widow with this take down system and liked it. Robertson Stykbows provided me with the hinge and I was off and running.

This presentation is simply the finished bow, so that it is in the Gallery. I was struggling to find a name for this bow when one of the Hill Longbowmen suggested "Airwolf", after the attack helicopter. Since the bow is made for taking on flights and my other hunting bows have wolf oriented names, it seems like a good one.

The construction of this bow was quite a project, and definitely had its problems and ups and downs, but it came out pretty good. I did one of my web project pages (a huge one in four parts) covering the whole process of installing the hinge (not the laying up or building of the bow). As always, it includes the mistakes along the way. If you are interested in trying to use one of these hinges, there is much to be learned: Link to "Building a Bow With the Connexion Hinge"

Bow specs are: 61" 45@28 (40 at my draw) 3 laminations: yew, laminated bamboo, yew zebrawood riser .300 wood .80 glass

A thin leather shim goes into the opening to fill the very narrow saw curf that resulted from cutting the bow in half. I could glue this in, but won't as I want to be able to wax the ends as a part of regular bow maintenance.
One concern was the feel of the grip with the hinge in place. I'm very pleased. I left the riser a bit thicker than my norm, for more bearing surface, but it isn't too deep, and is very comfortable in my small hand, which curls right around the hinge.	Of course, the test is shooting it. This is at a bit over 15 yards, with the tillering string still on it and no nock point. I was too impatient to wait till I'd made it a new string. I think there is a javelina in Texas waiting for this new bow.
I made a carrying case of 10 oz. duck. The limbs go in the outer two tubes and a dozen arrows go in the pvc tube in the middle, or the pvc tube can be removed and a rolled up thin leather Lakota quiver and arrows can go in in it's place. There are large flaps on each end that close the tubes when the case is rolled up.	Pretty neat, huh?

Dick