First Build

Yeah... here it is. What I think of as a "carbine" -- not a short pistol prod nor a long full-size prod. This is an 18" x 50 lb 'replacement prod' for commercial crossbow pistols, with a V shaped prod. The tiller is after the fashion of a 16-17th century Malaysian matchlock pistol stock, made from maple with a variety of tropical hardwood accents. The design underwent several obvious changes between start and finish, including the pinlock and becoming a slurbow, but the result isn't too unpleasing, I think. Shoots well - much softer trigger pull than any 50# commercial pistolbow.

Really nice bow! Interesting design! I think some brass accents would look even more beautifull! Nice work!

Nice indeed! Great contrast between the two types of wood.

jds6

very nice



Todd

It does look great. More details and photos maybe?

I'll get some more pix in a day or so. That was the best I could do for "quick and dirty" in the cockpit of my boat/retirement home.

I set it up to shoot 1/4" diameter unfletched dowel bolts. The original plan was to use those cheap plastic or metal pistol bolts you see all over e-Bay, but the fletching on those is the drawback when I opted to make it a slurbow.

The slur came about because I kept neglecting to cut the bolt groove (don't have the right kind of tools). The top of the barrel needed to be removeable, so it's held on by two small brass screws at the front, and a plug at the aft end.

I still need some sort of 'brush' to help center the bolt at the lock end, although the forward motion of the string picks up the butt end, and the 2" long barrel at the front centers the bolt as it exits the weapon.

The power stroke of the prod is 7". The insert in the handle is a 1.5" diameter lazer cut roundel used to decorate soundholes in some musical instruments (I build mountain dulcimers and a few other small stringed instruments as well)

Kenh,

That turned out awesome, love the design and wood choices. Bolt grooves are a pain, I`ve set-up router jigs and done it that way, but I find that an x-acto knife and steel straight edge to scribe parallel lines, a 1/4" mortise chisel, and a round rasp work the best, and more fun to boot.

cheers

I think in future builds I'll make sandwich tillers from 3 pieces, the center 3/16" or whatever of which will be set below the deck top to form the groove. The spaces for the mechanics of the action can also arranged in that area easily by using smaller pieces of the center wood to frame the action area.

It's interesting to see a slurbow build as they don't seem too common
and your choice of woods work very well together.

Do you notice much difference in accuracy with the unfletched bolts compared to those that have them?

Haven't really had a chance to do a lot of accuracy testing yet. But I'm grouping about 4" at 20 ft with no sights at all so that's not too bad. Certainly no worse than the commercial crossbow pistol I have.

Cool little project. Would one be able to make passable bolts out of hardwood dowels?

kenh wrote:I think in future builds I'll make sandwich tillers from 3 pieces, the center 3/16" or whatever of which will be set below the deck top to form the groove. The spaces for the mechanics of the action can also arranged in that area easily by using smaller pieces of the center wood to frame the action area.

Kenh, that's exactly how I cut the laminate sections for my current project. I should have read this thread more closely, instead of just ogling the photos, sounds like we were dealing with some similar issues.
BTW, I've done bolt grooves a few different ways, practically a new way with every build. If I'm just using the stock wood for the surface, i.e. not adding a brass track or anything, I prefer doing it slowly by hand with various grades of sandpaper wrapped around dowels versus using routers or chisels or anything else. Working slowly by eye lets me make corrections on the fly and keep things straight and level, whereas one slip with a chisel or router on that very important area of the weapon and I'm starting over with a new chunk of wood!
Gnome

OCG - that's exactly how I make bolts - dowel with weighted heads (standard arrow points).

Gnome - yeah I really like the sandwich tiller idea. I can see where it's especially useful when you have a complicated trigger mechanism. That being said, my current full-size build is a one-piece prod with the groove lightly chiseled then sanded straight and smooth. After that it'll be back to pistolbows and sandwiched tillers - may try your stacked prods. BTW, I'm in awe of your most current build!