Tips to repair a horn limb
Hi
Small disaster today. I was stringing my bow with my 5 years old daughter frolicking around me - and I was finishing to string when she attempted a salto jump from the table : I dropped the bow, caught the kid.
Result : the kid is safe and still happy as a pig in s..., but the string slipped from the bridge, and the wrong tension splitted the horn of one the limb lengthwise, I mean that the horn delaminated middle of its thickness on about 6 centimeters.
It makes me utterly sick, this is my favourite bow and I've trained really hard with it. I want to find some way to repair it.
I'm thinking to heat gently the dammaged limb, then leak generousy some hide glue in the split, and lash very tightly.
Has any anybody experienced this mishap and what would be your advice ?
Small disaster today. I was stringing my bow with my 5 years old daughter frolicking around me - and I was finishing to string when she attempted a salto jump from the table : I dropped the bow, caught the kid.
Result : the kid is safe and still happy as a pig in s..., but the string slipped from the bridge, and the wrong tension splitted the horn of one the limb lengthwise, I mean that the horn delaminated middle of its thickness on about 6 centimeters.
It makes me utterly sick, this is my favourite bow and I've trained really hard with it. I want to find some way to repair it.
I'm thinking to heat gently the dammaged limb, then leak generousy some hide glue in the split, and lash very tightly.
Has any anybody experienced this mishap and what would be your advice ?
Your daughter is ok, that is good.
This is repairable no problem I think.
Length-wise split is not threat to bow, many bow have and shoot fine.
So, I think your idea is good and should work well, maybe sinew wrap if you can.
I dont know much of the viscosity of the hide glue, maybe thinner is better for this with much heat, though I would wait for someone who knows best.
Hope you may give life to your bow again! You can use left over glue to hold down your daughter during important times....ha ha
This is repairable no problem I think.
Length-wise split is not threat to bow, many bow have and shoot fine.
So, I think your idea is good and should work well, maybe sinew wrap if you can.
I dont know much of the viscosity of the hide glue, maybe thinner is better for this with much heat, though I would wait for someone who knows best.
Hope you may give life to your bow again! You can use left over glue to hold down your daughter during important times....ha ha
You need to be careful. The damage you can see is not always the damage you have got. Also we need to know what sort of bow it is, as some are more sensitive to such damage than others.
S
S
While I have never tried the repair on a horn bow, I have done this with numerous multi-lam recurves and such.
As you say, apply a little heat...actually what I've done is just left the bow in the hatch of my RX-7 in the heat...gets up to about 120*f. Then I used a flexible glue...hide glues work, but I an epoxy for a lot of things called Circalok. I would squeeze lots of glue between the laminations and then try to knead as much as possible out. I would repeat this several times to make sure I got a good saturation inside the bow.
After I was convinced the glue had penetrated as much as possible, I would clamp the limb often and tightly, then band it up all and let the thing sit for about a week...minimum for my glue, some glues need less time, some glues (hide glues) need way more.
Then it's off to the tillering tree for some very careful tests. If it doesn't pull true, it's junk to me. I've had about as many successes as failures.
The big thing, though, is if you feel you will ever be able to trust the bow after a repair. A lot of people do not...if I didn't make the bow myself and am not intimately aware of every lamination, then I have a ahrd time feeling 100% confident with a bow...which is a big thing. There are times when I rely on my bow food, and there have been a few times where an arrowhead separated my life from my death. Confidence is the most important part and, if you lack it, you may as well start a new bow right away.
As you say, apply a little heat...actually what I've done is just left the bow in the hatch of my RX-7 in the heat...gets up to about 120*f. Then I used a flexible glue...hide glues work, but I an epoxy for a lot of things called Circalok. I would squeeze lots of glue between the laminations and then try to knead as much as possible out. I would repeat this several times to make sure I got a good saturation inside the bow.
After I was convinced the glue had penetrated as much as possible, I would clamp the limb often and tightly, then band it up all and let the thing sit for about a week...minimum for my glue, some glues need less time, some glues (hide glues) need way more.
Then it's off to the tillering tree for some very careful tests. If it doesn't pull true, it's junk to me. I've had about as many successes as failures.
The big thing, though, is if you feel you will ever be able to trust the bow after a repair. A lot of people do not...if I didn't make the bow myself and am not intimately aware of every lamination, then I have a ahrd time feeling 100% confident with a bow...which is a big thing. There are times when I rely on my bow food, and there have been a few times where an arrowhead separated my life from my death. Confidence is the most important part and, if you lack it, you may as well start a new bow right away.
Mac; I am interested in how an arrowhead separated your life from your death. -j-
May have been a bit of an exaggeration lol but between a hog and a big rock...he might not have been able to kill me, but he could have done quite a bit of damage.