I built this bow about 15 years ago, but recently took it of the wall and made a new flemish style string out of Dynema plus a new metal windless and then a cocking lever.
Then a rear sight and a brass bolt keeper. The bow is shooting much faster than it did with my original thick heavy hemp string. Gallway didn't mention a cocking lever for the heavier steel prod bows so I designed a simple first class lever made from hickory.
The working end is 4 inches to the fulcrum and handle is 26 1/2" long. I made a double S hook to catch the string out of 5/16" rod. The ropes are clove hitched to the S hook.
After building this bow I have my douts that Ralph did his own work. Likely his handy man actually built his bows. This bow does pull 600 lbs @ 6" draw. I checked it with a 300 lb halibut scale and a single doubling pulley. The windless works fine with a single pulley instead of the double pulley Ralph shows in his book but the cocking lever is even
quicker and much simpler to make. Instead of bow irons I chose to use a hemp string binding and wood wedge. The string nocks are not quite the same as Ralph's but the bow dimensions are the same. My roller nut is made from Moose antler just because I have lots of it. I mortised in a piece of hardened spring steel into the nut. The stock is walnut and ash. I didn't inlay my lock plates because my stock was only 1 1/4 wide,
the same width as my nut. Lock plates are 1/4" thick. I have short 1/4" steel pins soldered into the lock plate to keep the roller nut from flying out. The trigger is right out of Ralph's book. I used a small coiled compression spring out of a faucet for the trigger return. My bolts use what I call fiddler's super stumper points. I came up with these for use on my atlatl darts. copper sweat reducer 1/4" x 3/8". The inside dia.
of the 1/4" end is actually 3/8" and the 3/8" end is actually 1/2". I know very weird
but thats plumbing for you!!! I put 3/8" x 2" long rod sharpened for the points. I've been using medium thick super glue to glue points and sockets to poplar shafts. You can shoot these into trees without braking them. Now to figure out how to add some pictures. cheers fiddler49
Then a rear sight and a brass bolt keeper. The bow is shooting much faster than it did with my original thick heavy hemp string. Gallway didn't mention a cocking lever for the heavier steel prod bows so I designed a simple first class lever made from hickory.
The working end is 4 inches to the fulcrum and handle is 26 1/2" long. I made a double S hook to catch the string out of 5/16" rod. The ropes are clove hitched to the S hook.
After building this bow I have my douts that Ralph did his own work. Likely his handy man actually built his bows. This bow does pull 600 lbs @ 6" draw. I checked it with a 300 lb halibut scale and a single doubling pulley. The windless works fine with a single pulley instead of the double pulley Ralph shows in his book but the cocking lever is even
quicker and much simpler to make. Instead of bow irons I chose to use a hemp string binding and wood wedge. The string nocks are not quite the same as Ralph's but the bow dimensions are the same. My roller nut is made from Moose antler just because I have lots of it. I mortised in a piece of hardened spring steel into the nut. The stock is walnut and ash. I didn't inlay my lock plates because my stock was only 1 1/4 wide,
the same width as my nut. Lock plates are 1/4" thick. I have short 1/4" steel pins soldered into the lock plate to keep the roller nut from flying out. The trigger is right out of Ralph's book. I used a small coiled compression spring out of a faucet for the trigger return. My bolts use what I call fiddler's super stumper points. I came up with these for use on my atlatl darts. copper sweat reducer 1/4" x 3/8". The inside dia.
of the 1/4" end is actually 3/8" and the 3/8" end is actually 1/2". I know very weird
but thats plumbing for you!!! I put 3/8" x 2" long rod sharpened for the points. I've been using medium thick super glue to glue points and sockets to poplar shafts. You can shoot these into trees without braking them. Now to figure out how to add some pictures. cheers fiddler49
Last edited by fiddler49 on Thu Jul 26, 2012 12:25 pm; edited 1 time in total