reverseriser

I joined the Pirates of Archery Bowyers Swap again for 2010. For this year, the challenge was to do something different than you had done before, to make some element of your swap bow that was new to you. Just as the swap was being announced I received a great set of pictures of what appears to be a John Schulz reverse riser Hill bow. I shared this picture, as well as pictures of Chasseur Noire, with Jeff, the person I was building for. He liked them both, so I decided to combine them and build my first ever reverse riser bow, with shaped riser, using black glass and bamboo. This involved a couple of somewhat different building issues, so I'm showing some building pix here... not a buildalong, just a couple of pix I thought were interesting in terms of showing what was different about this bow. I made a symetrically arched riser and used one lam on the belly and three on the back. Taking the front laminations over the riser in this forward riser design called for full one piece 72" laminations, as I didn't want joins to show on the riser, which, being shaped, would not have a leather wrap. Running the lams over the arched riser also required a new full length aluminum pressure plate for the clamping process. The riser shaping, essentially an exagerated locator grip, was done with multiple diameter sleeves in an oscillating spindle sander.

Strung... To me, the departure curve of the limbs from the riser looks really strange when you're used to seeing standard straight riser longbows.	Unstrung... It doesn't show very well here, but there is a slight amount of reflex to the limbs. Yes, the lower limb is longer than the upper. I placed the locator and shelf based on putting the balance of the bow at the pivot point of the force in the hand with a low wrist longbow grip. The lower limb is wider than the upper and the bow tillers dead even, as I like it.	Right side riser... I'm very pleased with the fit of the fades. Three lams are forward of the riser, one back.
Off side of riser.	Belly side of riser. The riser itself is made of two laminated pieces of makore and you can see the lamination in the center.	I had never shaped a riser at all and was copying a John Schulz bow that had quite pronounced finger grooves. I guess I lost my courage because mine ended up pretty slight.
I wanted a name that was somehow related to the "forward" concept of the riser. Being of that era, I thought that I would honor the Forward Scouts of the Viet Nam War... very brave men who led the way.		At full draw. I could be happier with this. The straightness of the limb ends carries down a bit further than my usual. I could have put a bit more taper in. On the othe hand, that power from the lower third makes the bow really like heavy arrows.

The pull is quite smooth, but the bow is not fast. I chrono'ed it at 130 fps with 10.5 gpp arrows, which is very slow by most standards, but it's a heavy bow for me with my limitations and I was clearly not getting full draw, maybe 24". At my full draw of 25" I can usually get 140 with a 10 gpp arrow. Jeff at 26" and 40# at that draw should be able to get somewhere between 140 and 150. That's not quite up to the traditional straight longbow standard of draw weight plus 115, but close. (If you're used to modern bow figures at 28" and 50 to 60 pound draw weights, remember, you're comparing apples and oranges!)

One of the things I wanted was good cast, the ability to throw a real heavy arrow at hunting distances. With the power down in the lower limb, this bow does really like heavy arrows. I did some shooting with heavy woodies, well over 12 gpp, and had a ball. Even at 30 yards, thanks to the weight, the arrows were burying a good third of their length into my layered plastic backstops and after a couple of rounds I was very consistent in hitting the animal targets at that range. In general, for hunting, I'd rather be shooting a heavy arrow with a really sharp broadhead at 140 than a lighter arrow at more speed. A good hunter shooting at reasonable hunting distance should have no trouble taking deer or pigs with this bow.

This was my first group shot effort, after three shots to find an aiming point, at 17 yards, with the heavy wood arrows. Grouping low, but basically together. The two shots touching each other were consecutive, the third one was the one an inch below them at 7 o'clock, and it hit one the nocks and angled in as you see it. The others aren't as good but six consecutive shots at this draw weight is tough for me. (My normal draw is 22#.)

This shot is interesting to me because it was shot before the bow was finished. In fact, I was using the tillering string. You can see the roughness of the riser shaping. I would shoot a few, see how it felt in my hand, take it in and sand a bit, then repeat until I had a comfortable grip.

Comparison

Hmm.. I hesitated to include this section, but I decided it was only fair. I did say that I was trying to copy pictures I had been sent of a Schulz reverse riser bow. I also had some pix of Schulz reverse riser Hill that I once owned. My bow was clearly a simpler version than the pix I was sent. My copy is certainly not exact, but I'll leave you to form your own opinions...

This and the next are the "fancy" reverse riser bow. Like mine, it was a four lam bow, but unlike mine, it has all four lams forward (back of bow) and only the glass on the belly. I preferrered the contrast of the bamboo on both sides of the riser, and also the idea of locking the riser in more solidly, since I had no experience with this design.	Note the deeper finger grooves...
This is my apparently older reverse riser Schulz. It was a 3 lam bow, with one forward and two on the belly.	Deeper shaping than I did, but much broader, less specifically related to the fingers.

This was a real challenge and a terrifically fun project. I do plan to do it again.

Dick

Some Thoughts On Forward Riser Longbows

Following the posting of this page, one of the Howard Hill Longbowmen asked me to post my thoughts on the advantages/disadvantages of the forward riser on a longbow to the list. I came up with the following:

Carbon Carver et al...

Re the forward (or reverse) riser...

As with most things archery, you can get all kinds of arguments on this feature. Here are the claimed potential advantages/disadvantages as I understand them:

- The forward riser is supposed to be more forgiving of form errors. This makes a bit of sense if you realize that what it does is create something of an extreme deflex or string follow situation, i.e. moving the limb tips back toward the archer in relation to the his grip on the bow. The string follow longbow has long been known as being more forgiving than other designs.

- If the forward riser is combined with a deep locator, there are some who feel it then permits the longbow shooter to shoot with a straightened arm (recurve style) and gives between 1" and 2" of additional draw length. As much as I would like to have a longer draw, I see some problems with that. Tilting the hand into a deep locator creates a "recurve grip", which is fine with a shorter bow, but (IMHO) not so much so with a long, thin longbow, which has proven, over a long period of time, to generally respond best with some heel pressure to keep it at the right angle and discourage torquing. Combining a recurve grip with longbow physics has proven problematic, as the makers of so-called "hybrid" longbows... RD's with recurve grips... have discovered. I bought a hybrid a few years ago, when folks were first getting excited about them, and it had so much hand shock it twice jumped clean out of my hand, and I don't shoot with a loose grip! They are getting it down these days, having gradually found their own set of bow physics.

- A disadvantage of the fr is that, like having deflex or string follow, it does reduce pre-set tension in the limbs and therefore the draw weight and speed. How much? Depends on how forward the pressure points in the riser end up. This can be counteracted by building in reflex or pre-set tension, i.e. using a form that moves the tips back to even with the grip or even forward of it. Schulz did this on the bows I had pictures of. (However, it should be noted that this feature was common to most longbows made during the period he worked for Hill.) I did not do this, as I have no experience with this building feature and didn't now what to expect from it. That's an experiment for the future... possibly the very near future. I'm considering building another bow to Georgia Brown's formula, but on a form with a considerable amount of reflex and with the forward riser.

- Let's start an argument!
- One of the disadvantages claimed for the forward riser bow is that it looks weird!
- One of the advantages claimed for the forward riser bow is that it looks neat!
Y'all can come back inside when you're done playing........

- A disadvantage that I perceive as being real is that because of the appearance of this type of bow, it is very likely to be accidentally strung backwards! When you've spent a lifetime expecting bows to have a certain shape and stringing them accordingly, this bow messes with your mind! I must have checked every step at least 6 extra times during building to make sure I didn't lay it up wrong, cut the nocks in backwards, or cut the locator into the wrong side of the riser. If you have one of these bows, you need to be careful who you let play with it and make certain that they understand it. I still had to check every time I put the string on to make sure I had it on the correct side of the bow.

- Another disadvantage in practical terms is that it is a bit trickier to make. Ask me how I know! I'm sure this has affected the number of longbow makers who mess with it.

- Another advantage is that it does look different. It attracts attention; people ask you about it and you get to talk about your bow. Gosh, don't you just hate it when that happens? 8^)

- It does feel nice in the hand, both to shoot and to carry... But then, so does a standard longbow.

- How do I balance all that out? What conclusion do I come to? I believe that there are always things that are of enough interest to enough folks that they never die out but can never really come to the fore. The straight longbow itself is an example. It never dies, but forever remains a "niche" bow. It never conquers the marketplace. If it could in fact be demonstrated to be absolutely, in measurable and demonstrable terms the best possible bow design for trad shooting, recurves and RD's would be niche bows. Within the very small niche that is straight longbows, the forward riser occupies a similar position. It is intriguing enough to never die out, even though it cannot be positively demonstrated to be superior. Long may it live so that folks like me can play with it!

Dick

Here you see my standard straight riser pattern, top, and the actual riser blank for the new bow, which was done free hand, but which then provided the pattern for any future reverse riser bows.	This is the full length pressure plate I had to come up with to lay up this bow... shown on top of my oven.
Here's the layup, showing the clamping of the full length lams over the new riser shape.	The riser, showing the nice fades that came out of this layup.