some of my projects - kayak frame and bow

i love working in wood- as do all of you on here i am sure.
heres a skin on frame kayak build my daughter and i did- really love these boats and am hooked- no glues or any fasteners- except for the modern skin- not too many walruses around here to use a natural skin- cant even get my wife to chew my moccasins- doubt she would help prep a huge stinky old walrus hide


and a quick pic of one of my bows- i build a lot of bows of all varieties- to say that I love building and shooting bows- would be an understatement- my family might call it a bit of an obsession



cheers
wayne

Absolutely beautiful work...thanks for sharing! what woods did you use in the bow? and do you have a picture of the finished kayak?

thank you so much

the kayaks were covered with a synthetic- (polypropylene) and saturated with a goop- creating a beautiful translucent effect. we did add some tints to some of the boats- we built 8 of them for a local rediscovery youth camp.
need to find some pics of them finished.

that particular bow was a real challenge - a mate gave me a small board of very high quality curly maple- he was in the music wood business, and had always kept the primo pieces for his own stash.
the piece was only about 22" long, 4" wide and just on an inch thick- so to stretch it out, in order to make the required 34" ( x2- as overall length of the bow is 64") needed for these bow limbs- i spliced on a pretty piece of yew wood-and i used some Brazilian Walnut( Ipe) for the piece in the splice. I used a combination of curly maple for the sides of the riser, with plain maple floor board left over for the center I beam with two american walnut accent stripes- the flared piece in the middle of the riser is also yew, with some more walnut accent stripes.
the bow limbs are made with 4 lamination's - so the two inside lams- that are not visible) are plain yew.

this bow was a real challenge to build- in an attempt to get an attractive bow that didnt look like a bunch of odd pieces thrown together- but was in reality a bow built from scraps- left overs from so many other bow projects.

thanks for looking
cheers
wayne

Nice stuff Wayne. I thought you had used osage in that bow.

Have you ever tried some of the persian type, with horns in the laminations?

thank you,
no osage in that one my friend- but i do love working with it- its an awesome wood to work with- built many self bows from osage staves.

i have a replica of an asian bow- but it is not the original sinew and horn- i would love to build one some day- it is the only bow i have ever bought. made in hungary.
i have built some static tip recurves- that the design originates from those early asian bows.
additionally i have been working on the forms for two asian bows- 1. a scythian, and 2. a hagyar bow. but they will be synthetic, but will still have the wooden levers( siyahs).
need to get cracking on those two bows!

here is my hunnish horse bow


one of my very short ( 48" tip to tip) static tip recurve bows- not quite finished- just checking tiller


here is one of the tips finished



thanks for looking-
cheers
wayne

Wayne, i love your bows!

thanks mate- much appreciated
do you do any archery?

I have a 30 pounder yamaha from the 70's or 80's. But can't seem to buy any arrows around here anymore. I'm an absolute fan of crossbows. But never delved into building.

Most of my woodworking is roof building, timber framing, stairs, balconies, etc. And i have a city and guilds of guitarmaking.

wow!!
we have some of the nicest music grade sitka spruce right here on island- have good friends in the figured maple music wood industry too!!
i can get wooden shafts here pretty easy for you- should you ever need.
best place to buy completed arrows etc is from http://www.3riversarchery.com/

cheers
wayne

Hey Wayne, i haven't built anything for may be ten years! And i have my little stash of tonewoods.