boat builder here , if you sand and scratch the glue side of the pvc and wood with 50 grit reduction paper it should stick well with epoxy once de-greased , but a contact adhesive rated for pvc to wood would always be a better choice for a product with that much tension in its usage . you will still need to sand/key the two joining faces and put a priming layer of glue on each face before final glue up and clamping. oh and try the more solid pvc pipe , it flattens easily with heat and pressure, see backyard bowyer youtube
Captain Thanks, I was thinking about just flattening a length of PVC pipe gluing a piece of hard door skin to each side with an oak handle. What glue do you recommend?
Interesting..! The 2 types of pvc are not the same. I agree that the clear flexible pvc only adds durability. You need to do the same bow using flattened pvc pipe. I think youll get added poundage that way. Thanks for the video...
Yeah the pipe is most likely high density PVC and the flexible would probably be low density, besides that the low density probably has some releasing agent on it or an addition in the molecular structure to make it low density making it not react with the epoxy. In Low density PVC the molecular structure is more spread out making it act more like a fluid hence the felxibility I don't know for sure how epoxy works in if it reacts to the molecules for what it's making it stick or just being very adhesive but I think its probably because its low density.
I used flattened pvc to make the mounts for some removable DIY pontoons that can attach to a canoe (or originally a prototype for a modular boat that can assemble and disassemble on the water while in motion. Think “old school power rangers mechs”)…..sweet, right? In any case when I put them on a canoe and rock the thing side to side; the flattened pvc actually had some spring and seemed to push the boat back upright. I had to scrap the boat itself due to lack of storage while I worked out some engagement issues while assembling in motion. But the pontoons make an excellent “anti roll” device for very young or novice canoe and kayak enthusiasts.
I just finished my 1st bow thanks to your channel. Ordered some arrows that came in this morning and Im gonna test it this weekend. Hickory 25lbs bow. Thank you very much for your content, I discovered a new hobby that I like a lot
Nick is the man! As far as I'm aware he invented the PVC bow. Funny, I was just sifting through some clutter in my attic earlier and saw a dozen PVC bows I made back in 2014 because I got hooked on his channel. His blowgun and darts builds were also the best I've seen on RU-vid since - I ended up making a couple of SCARY powerful blowguns, I had no idea blowguns could hit that hard until then.
@@shmuckling No he did not but he did invent modern recurve designs where you heat up bow using heat gun and bend into shape. Before his designs people were using gun heated flat limb designs or a round limb longbow more prone to shatter where limb tips were a hardwood or for some who had it, horn/antler. I almost used gray type PVC in a few sizes used for holding electricity in open the kind made for sun resistance and use a heat gun to heat PVC onto a Bear gray fiberglass Titan so I could have a Bow at my 24--24.5 inch draw pulling 45 pounds. However, I finally found a small Bow company, Great Plains Archery Company willing to make a bow for me from the Youth Longbow model in hickory at 45 pounds where bow models in youth are made for a 24 inch draw but can be used up to a 29 inch draw safely.
Was he the guy who stuffed fiberglass rods into the pvc pipe and then heat formed the pvc around them (no glue iirc)? They worked great but looked a little strange.
Yes, another of the modern PVC bow designs the Backyard Boyer pioneered or made more widely known was a bow using Fiberglass rods for inner bow strength. Another was to use flexible Conduit/Electrical PVC inside white pipe schedule 40 for a high poundage bow but some in operation longer type PVC bowyers May have used same technique in past only they were using all white pipe for inner and outer and heating bow so you had a flat bow. I'm wondering if using a screw in part for a PVC bow and keeping round and screwed together I could have a 2 piece takedown longbow or long-recurve made not using friction?
I'm pretty sure Black Locust the wood that was used by the Cherokee for their warbows? And Cherokee Warbows could be big bows, 69" long at times that would resemble English Yew Longbows in shape + size. From what I've heard, Black Locust is one of the premier woods for bowmaking alongside Osage Orange and Yew. Pretty cool to see you make your first bow using this wood.
I haven’t watched the end but my first thought is that the freezer curtain is too thin to work, but the epoxy might help. I’ll follow up after watching the results. Well, I stand corrected, great job! Love these will it bow videos.
Kramer, ive made quite a few black locust bows and have had good luck with them unbacked. Cant remember breaking any. I always use a heat gun on the belly until the grain gets a light purple flush. The heat adds many pounds to the draw weight. I try to follow a ring on the back which can be tough because it' can be hard to see if you break through. Might not be critical anyway. Young trees grow straight and are pretty easy to find here in So Cal mountains. Maybe you can find them also in your area. Blessings!
I've made 3 bows thanks to your channel. It's a really enjoyable hobby. But what if you took actual schedule 40 pvc pipe and cut it length wise and heated it and flattened it out, and then cut out a backing out of that? That might add more stored energy into the bow with not a lot of additional draw weight.
This is awesome, thank you so much for making this video. I tested this with a popsicle stick (since they're usually made of birch) by bonding a couple strips of 3d printed material to both sides used a luggage scale to see the difference of that vs ordinary popsicle stick and that made it like more than twice as strong and powerful! I've always wanted to be able to make composite materials out of 3d printed material but was never able to until I watched this video!
I've always wanted to try this! Thank you! They DEEPLY score horn when it's applied to a bow; perhaps roughing up the PVC with some aggressive sand paper would give you the surface area the glue needs. OH! I just got to that part of the video lol
I've always wanted to make a bow and back it with a fish skin of some sort like catfish, sturgeon, halibut or lingcod. I remember reading about that type of backing in a book I had a while back when I was into bow building. Would be real cool to see the unique patterns of fish on stick flinger. You should give a try at some point, would be cool to satisfy my curiosity.
I thought you were going to use pvc pipe for the belly as a horn substitute. The vinyl sheeting is not stiff enough and will not add anything but mass. Fun project though, thank you for sharing.
I say this in love because I love your show and I think you're a cool guy PVC actually does make a great bow standing alone there used to be a RU-vid channel where a guy would make strong heavy bows out of PVC anywhere nail drivers I think that heaviest one he made was 80 lb and the arrows hit hard and the bow was actually quiet
Finally someone experimented with this. Thanks for sharing this Kramer. Awesome. I never got to trying this out yet but you answered this question i had.
Checked Britannica, and the curtain is something called "Plasticized PVC." It's a mix with up to 50% other chemicals, such as DEHP, so it's effectively not the same plastic as the pipes or the large and *already flattened* cutting mats. Side note: I wonder if "PVC glue" works to bond PVC to porous materials like wood, since it really just acts like a solvent to help bond PVC to itself...
I would also like to see a comparable bow, made with the white pvc also, I think it would add pound age, while being able to tiller more, making the limbs snap faster, making it a faster bow. Thanks again for such a great, entertaining video!
I was hoping to see ya break the bow. I would have loved to see how the backing reacts to a snap; maybe this material could be worth using just for that.
The army of Attila the hun made composite bows to make the bows shorter so his soldiers could fire arrows while riding horses.// Maybe clear pvc is not as porous as pvc pipe, maybe that was the issue with your glue bonding, but you did sand the clear pvc... weird. Great video.
Одни из самых дорогих луков обтягивались с одной стороны кожей, а с другой сухожилиями. Такой лук мог иметь небольшую силу в плечах, зато момент ускорения был гораздо выше нежели у простых деревянных луков
This is awesome! I've been hoping you'd give PVC a try. I think the white pipe SCHL 40 PVC would make an even better backing, but this does look really good and it seems to work great!
You shouldve roughed the PVC material up with sandpaper or whatever like you did with the handle section in the $15 bow build video. More surface for glue/epoxi to hold on to
For one thing, the clear sheets of PVC don't have the pigment in it two. They've been polished and finished to be clear three. They're probably still coated in release agent from when they were made
you could buy two square meters of fiberglass, extract two meters of strands from it, and they would serve much better than stretchy plastic! But you will have to use EA 40 epoxy resin with plasticizer
As a bowyer and general woodsmith, etc, I'm wondering where hes getting the clear PVC, im a fan of unorthodox backing materials . Anyone know how I can get some?
It's the same material they use on walk-in coolers and freezers the clear flaps. You should be able to get some at a online cooler supply company. I believe they call him a door damn.
I bet you could get the first strip of plastic to adhere if you sanded the surfaces and wipe them with xylene for thinning epoxy so it would grab deeper through the surfaces.
You went in the completely opposite direction than I thought you were going when I saw the thumbnail and even in the beginning of your explanation… it’s the schedule 40 that has the amazing compression qualities and locust likes to fret…
Seeing as this is kind of a toe into the realm of composite bow making: what's the heaviest drawn bow you've made so far? Was it the Bamboo 100lber? Any plans to do a traditional (gut, sinew or horn laminations) composite bow build?
8:51 PVC pipe is 100% PVC. That flap material is probably only about 15% PVC or less and mostly made of DINP, so you'd have to find a glue that works for DINP, not PVC.
There's different types and applications to the PVC what u where using looks like it has silicone coating or mixed in the process do to its shean makes it harder for things to stick to it witch is probly why it pealed up right away for the first attempt
i mean it should be obvious those two are different types of pvc... given that one is hard and breaks rather then bends and one is flexible and bends rather then breaks... thats a pretty obvious difference i wouldve thought^^
Bought one of your bones bows from you it's awesome I'll send you some photos now I have a question for you could you make me a recurve same length same kind of technology I do all the hand work myself out of you would with clear glass with green fiberglass strip down the middle of the handle a two strips of fiberglass one on each side below the yew?? And I'm on the intermediate fasting sensible meals but most of the time I'm doing carnivore and believe me it worked I lost over 80 lb I'm back to running rucking old military stuff coming to the surface again
I think it was a mistake to use that flexible PVC instead of the tube the rigid one. I am pretty sure the flexible one would stretch making it kind of pointless. Personally I would like to see a video with the rigid PVC on the belly of the bow. So kind of as a replacement for horn