AFTER 3 YEARS WE FINALLY DID IT 😮

I don't know if I can pull off making a three-piece takedown bow without fiberglass. It's how I started a video a while ago, but I now know, not that I only can make this bow, but that it's one of my favorite bows I've made to date. I like it so much and it shoots so smooth, I even wrote an entire book about how to build this. This video is not about the book, but about everything that came before it that prompted me to write it. How in the world would I be moved so much by a bow that it would make me want to spend weeks, months on writing this how-to? So, this is the story of the three-piece wood takedown bow. Don't break. Don't break. Don't break. A three-piece bow opens up more sourcing opportunities because you don't need as long of a board to build a bow. Now, this is a crazy idea because it's a cardinal sin to manipulate the back of a wood bow, but today we're drilling through it voluntarily. I wrote about this in chapter 1 of why this bow is special. Now, the quick version is that I wanted to test out different bows for designs. Starting back about 2 and 1/ half, 3 years ago, I did a bunch of tests. And one of my ideas was if I could build the proper template jig for take down hardware, I could build many risers and many limbs. And then what I could do is swap those and interchange those. And that's exactly what I did. But the problem is there's near infinite combinations. So as I would like a different design a little bit more, I would double down on it. Anyway, in the end, I made 10 risers and about 10 sets of limbs. I still have a bunch of the test limbs up here. What this allowed me to do is to swap out risers with limbs. Now 10 x 10 is what? 100 combinations. I didn't try quite a 100 combinations, but I tried a lot of them out to see how it would shoot. Incoming discovery of two bows. A recurve bow that I called the mountain bow and then a long bow that has a lot of reflex that I also kind of called the mountain bow. And I made a video one day that said uh the best bow you can't buy. Right. Watch this. Now, what if I told you those good shots were the bow's fault, not mine. This is the best bow that you can't buy. And today, I'm going to expose why it is so good. I built this bow. This is the seventh iteration of this bow design, and I really like how this one turned out. I think this bow has cracked the code of combining speed and smoothness. Although, there is one big problem to this bow. Today, we're covering seven things about this bow, about bow design, and what makes a bow good. I'm going to basically be reviewing my own bow today. Now, I've sold some of these mountain bows and I've got a really big project coming that is basically the mountain bow for a production bow that's fiberglass. The other design that I really liked was this one. I like this one because it was so smooth. Now, what if we made this one out of wood? Incoming, our three-piece wood taked down bow. Now, I made this video on this Osage bow, the three-piece one, and it shot good, but the angles weren't correct. But it was proof of concept immediately, and I was pumped about it. So, I spent tons of time from there figuring out the right angles, not right angles, but the correct angles and the optimal limb distance. And I came up with this long bow. If you're wanting to make a bow, there are so many reasons this one could be good for you. Gosh, it shoots good. I'm shocked cuz I haven't shot this in a couple weeks. I had to take another shot. Beautiful. The benefit of this bow is it gives you a ton of option as far as materials go, which will make it easier to build. Additionally, a 26-in draw can shoot this, and a 33in draw length can shoot this. Component number one, a riser. And what you'll notice is the shape is the same on each one of these. The important thing is getting the riser profile and shape perfect. Now, I broke this down with a bunch of different diagrams and optimal information so that it can be perfect for you, too. And with simple measurements, you can get it just right and then adjust the handle how you would like. But you can basically use any type of hardwood for the riser. So, it could be exotic wood or it could be something like hickory and oak like this one. Or you could laminate a ton of material together like this one. This is the fiberglass one, but I can swap these other limbs onto this riser if I want, which opens up even more opportunity that you could make this as a entry level and then swap fiberglass limbs onto it later, which is a whole another rabbit hole. Okay, cool. It's just a riser, Kramer. Yeah, it's just a riser. Here's where some of the magic happens. We use the magical material of bamboo. This material is actually not wood. Technically, it's a type of uh grass that grows out of the ground. My name is Kramer Ammons. I make bows. Today is all about bamboo, how to use it when building with it, and more importantly, how not to. So, first we have to answer the question, what is bamboo? It's a miracle material, and as a matter of fact, it is the fastest growing plant. Panda's favorite food. Poundfor-pound, stronger than steel. With an exceptional tensil strength, bamboo covers a multitude of bow making sins. It comes in different forms and you can use it in different ways. From fiberglass bows to 100 lb self bows, smooth shooting recurves and accurate long bows. I'm telling you, bamboo does not get the credit that it deserves. If you have built bows without bamboo and then incorporate it into your bow making, you realize the miracle material that it is. Bamboo is technically grass, but we build with it like it's wood. Today, I'm going to give you everything you need to know of how to use bamboo in bow building. From bamboo backed bows to nodeless bamboo bows to laminated bamboo to fiberglass bamboo bows, we're going to cover it all. The way I like to describe it instead of grain and growth strings is it it acts like a sponge. Everything's kind of weaved together. And yes, you can split bamboo, but the backing of it is irrelevant when it comes to bow making. Normally we have to chase a growth ring, but on bamboo we don't. You can even sand the nodes off and you have a working solid bow because of how magical the material is. It honestly acts very similar to fiberglass. Fiberglass is a bunch of tiny grass strands either woven together or sometimes the strands are flat. There's different types of weaves and then they mix it with epoxy. So if you sand some of that fiberglass off, that's totally okay. It doesn't change the properties of the material. Bamboo is very similar. It means we can drill through the stinking bamboo and create nice hardware to have a takedown bow without failure. Another benefit to this is that we can choose the core material, the other side, the belly. I've so far done hickory oak. I'm working on an epay one now. I've done Osage. Every single one has worked phenomenal. The versatility of swapping out the limbs is awesome. Additionally, on a takedown bow, you could make two or three or four different sizes of limbs. You could change the length. You could also change the thickness. So, you could have one tillered for 30 lb, one tillered for 40, one tillered for 50. But you could keep it with one riser. So, you can now have three bows in one if you're a bow builder. The riser, you can choose your own material. the limbs. You can choose your own material. All you have to do is buy the bamboo. The bamboo is widely available. You can buy it all sorts of places. Of course, I'm going to recommend Shatterproof Archery. Links in the description for the bamboo and the takedown hardware. Me and Cass have put together an entire kit on shatterproof archery. So, if you just want to be one and done, you click the button once to purchase it and uh you get everything you need to make the bow. You can even include the bow string in it as an option and the book as an option. First 10 people get it free with that code if they're not already gone. Shameless pitch. You don't need any of that though. Back to the bow. Bamboo is so magical that you don't need a tip overlay. So check this out. This is just solid bamboo on the back. I didn't add a tip overlay. The option is you definitely can, but you don't have to. Also, limb wedge adds a lot of contrast and makes that look really cool to me. So benefits, the only necessary things is the take down hardware and the bamboo. The rest of the material you can swap out to your liking. I made this a longer bow. A couple reasons for that. One is it allows greater draw lengths. You can draw it much further. Two, it makes it smoother with this design. One of the great things is we can change this angle coming off of the riser. So, if you take a look at the limbs on this bow, the limb tips since we angled them back are right above the riser. So, it's different. It's like introducing some set into your bow. Now, we do reflex these limbs an inch and then we put them on. You can see if it's flat, they're still reflexed, but we angle that back. Taking a page out of the book of fiberglass bow building. The reason this is super cool and super important is we have a brand new design that would be really difficult to do with a onepiece bow. With a one piece bow, you would have to shoot, that would be tough. it'd be probably have to be Osage and then use a lot of steam bending. But here to sum this up by creating these shapes, it's really smooth to shoot. So it's smooth. You can draw it to 32 33 in. If it's tillered well, you can go really far back. Why was this important to me when writing the book? Well, this means the failure rate on this build is going to be extremely low. I've done other instructional builds before, like I have a I have an entire fiberglass bow that Shatterproof Archery will glue up for you and then you can shape it and finish it and come out with the bones but build it yourself. When I think through these things, I say, can I guarantee basically a 0% failure rate? I mean, mistakes can happen. You could accidentally cut through the limb, but if you do everything within a certain range, how easy are the little mistakes to fix? And that's the cool thing with this bow is that the tillering is really, really easy. Came up with a few different methods to tiller and I settled in writing about one that uses math in the book. So, you don't even have to have a tillering tree. You don't have to have a tillering stick. You can tiller this all with a tape measure. And then the the failure rate. It is so hard to break this bow because of its design, which means less experienced bowurs can get a taste of success quicker. I'm not going to say this is the absolute easiest bow to make because you do have to do the takedown hardware, but if you follow the simple principles, it's it's easier than you might think. And if the takedown hardware is not right the first time, I even explain how to fix it. Back to the idea of how can we lower the barrier to entry to archery and bow making for those who want to do it. I truly think this bow is one of those. And after putting hundreds and hundreds of hours into building these bows, writing the information on how to build them, and making videos, oh, I've got some good ones coming out soon. I've just become more and more confident in this style and that you could make an awesome smooth shooting successful bow, too. So, if you want to build this bow, stay tuned. I've got more videos coming out on it. If you want to get the book, feel free to do that. You can find it on Amazon. And if you want to get the kit for all of this, it's on Shatterproof Archery. Links in the description. No pressure to get anything, but I just want to be able to offer value to those who want it. Oh, and by the way, I think I'm going to sell like three of these. I've built three or four of these. shadowproof archery.com. You can find it all there. And remember, you're awesome and you make a difference. And you should make a difference. You should go make somebody else's day better today. I'll see you guys soon. Stay happy.