“Bamboo Beauty”
October 2010

I shot with James Havens and his son Jesse at a couple of shoots this summer. At the last rendezvous, I offered to show Jesse how a bow is built. This project got held up a bit by the recent shop renovation, but finally came together. Jesse spent a Saturday and Sunday in the shop, followed by a couple of afternoons after school. I showed him each part of the operation and he carried out some, such as grinding the lams. I did the planning, critical shaping and final finish.

Bamboo Beauty, with Orion, was my first "double build"... I had a second bow under construction at the same time, Orion. While working on Arakhor and Orion, it had occurred to me that the "overpass" riser shape I used on these bows, which lays up very easily, could also be used for a regular traditional belly mounted riser. This would involve simply doing the layup the same as for a forward riser and, after the blank was formed, measuring down from the crest of the overpass to a distance that would produce exactly a 4" flat, for the hand grip. By then using the drum sander to grind off the top of the overpass down to this line, you have a traditional riser, mounted on the belly. The gain here is that the fade slopes on the overpass riser are more gradual than the steeper slopes of more traditional risers and give less trouble in the lauyup process.

When we started Jesse's bow, I gave him the option of selecting either a forward or traditional riser. Jesse wanted the traditional rather than the forward. When I showed him the idea for using the overpass shape as the basis for it, he agreed to try it. So, for this bow, I used the overpass pattern riser, but reversed, as a regular belly mounted riser. I did the layup and then ground the top off the overpass to make the 4” hand flat. It worked very well. Following the bow pictures, I will include a section comparing riser shapes.

Layup:

.040 black glass
.110 lamboo parallel
.115 lamboo tapered .0015
,110 lamboo parallel
.040 black glass

Total Glass: .080
Total wood: .335

Riser 16” zebrawood

Finished bow: 68” 45@28

 

The color combination is great... black glass, white lamboo cores, zebrawood riser and black wrap.
Jesse's first lace... It kind of drove him huts, but he got it!	First shots!!!
Full draw	A very pleased Jesse with his new bow.

 

Dick Wighman

Notes on Risers

I use clamps in my layups, and clamping sloped surfaces is probably the most touchy part of the process. I also use a lot of clear glasss, and if you don't get a smooth match and even pressure, you can get bubbles that show through. I've gotten to where that's not much of a problem any more, but on the first layup of a forward riser that I did, Forward Scout, I immediately noticed that the clamps fit and accommodated the shallower, smoother fade curves of the forward riser much better than they did the steeper fade curves of the more traditional riser. I took to referring to the forward riser pattern as an "overpass riser" and the traditiional riser as a "ski slope" riser.

Somewhere between my second and third forward riser bows, it dawned on me that the forward riser layup just as it comes off the form, could equally well become a standard belly mounted riser. This would involve two very simple changes: 1. At the point where the bow becomes a finished bow blank, i.e. no shaping yet, I could simply draw a perpendicular line from the center of the overpass riser downwards, then place a center-finding ruler on that line and move it down until it showed 4" (standard longbow hand flat), draw that line, then run the blank through the drum sander and sand down to the drawn line. This results in a pretty standard looking belly mounted riser, just with gentler curves on the fades. The only other difference or change between forward and rear riser is simply the cutting of the nocks, angling them appropriately for the riser you're building.

Here are some pictures to illustrate:

Dick