5 inch yoke

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Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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  • January 15, 2012 at 6:09 am #43395
    Kevin Cunningham
    Participant

    I finished the bows and hardware on my new 5 inch yoke today. I am pretty proud of this one. As the steers get bigger I should also get better at building yokes. The last one they end up with will be pretty darn good. What I really want to do now is start bending some bows I can’t use PVC much longer.

    January 15, 2012 at 2:08 pm #71440
    Tim Harrigan
    Participant

    Looks good. Bending bows takes some pretty good effort to be successful. Do you have a steam box?

    January 15, 2012 at 6:13 pm #71443
    Kevin Cunningham
    Participant

    My old boss, a carpenter, has a steam box at his place. I know he has done a lot of bending for furniture, but I never got to learn from him. Luckily he still does electrical work for me so I am going to ask him about it next time he’s out here. Once again I am going to have to find some appropriate wood species on the west coast for bending bows. Any suggestions?

    January 15, 2012 at 10:11 pm #71444
    Kevin Cunningham
    Participant

    Here is a picture with the boys in the new yoke. It fits so much better than the old one and there is still a bit of room to grow into it.

    January 15, 2012 at 11:48 pm #71442
    Baystatetom
    Participant

    Looks good! If only you had some way to communicate with like minded people who worked in the woods back east, you might be able to get somebody to ship you out some hickory for bows.
    ~Tom

    January 16, 2012 at 1:50 pm #71438
    Michael Low
    Participant

    Talk to people making wooden long bows on the west coast. The Wilderness Awareness School in WA state and Jon Young in CA. Like bows for yokes archery bows are often steam bent for reflex etc.. They also need to have similiar wood strengths to able to bend (or be bent) and not break.
    Michael

    January 16, 2012 at 9:40 pm #71436
    Rod
    Participant

    If you can’t find local wood to bend as solid stock you can always laminate thinner strips together.

    January 16, 2012 at 10:27 pm #71441
    Doug
    Participant

    Kevin,

    Nice yoke, Google self bows and you should find lots of info on west coast wood to bend for bows, yew will show up a lot but there are many more that bowyers use to make self bows.

    Doug

    February 14, 2012 at 12:12 am #71447
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Kevin
    How did you get such a nice bend on the PVC bows? Conduit bender ? Looks nice.

    February 14, 2012 at 2:19 pm #71445
    Kevin Cunningham
    Participant

    Mark,

    I used the Tiller’s plans for my yoke and I think some where in their literature it talks about bending PVC bows. I filled the length of PVC with very dry sand, I dried mine on top of the wood stove for a day. Plug both ends with clay, corks, or some sort of wadding. Make sure they are totally full of sand but not packed tight. Gently heat the bows somewhere outside. You can do it over a fire, I used a camp stove. The PVC does give off some weird chemicals so don’t breath it. Keep them moving and try not to burn the plastic. Eventually they will become noodle limp and you can bend it around a form, I found that a coffee can worked perfect for the 5 inch bows. They quickly cool and hold their shape. I made sure they fit in the yoke before they were totally stiff. It is really easy and something that every body can get at a hardware store. I know for heavy pulling they won’t work but for small training yokes they are perfect.

    February 14, 2012 at 3:06 pm #71448
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Kevin

    Thanks, I made some PVC bows from 3/4 PVC for a 4″ yoke and it worked fine, but they went flat at the bend. I didn’t warm them up enough. I’ll retry it.

    Thanks

    February 14, 2012 at 3:28 pm #71439
    CharlyBonifaz
    Member

    been too dumb to get the pvc-pipes bent into a usable bow; not sure if our pvc is different… anyway, came up with another solution:
    used two different diameter water hoses and stuck them into each other; cut to desired length they made a perfect bow for the training yoke; had plans on repeating the idea with the larger yokes and stiffening the bows by inserting two canes/irons for the straight part; luckily a friend provided “real” bows, so that will be someone elses try…

    February 14, 2012 at 7:27 pm #71446
    Kevin Cunningham
    Participant

    The sand keeps the pipes from collapsing when they are bent. I wonder if the same would be true with metal pipe?

    February 14, 2012 at 11:46 pm #71437
    Vicki
    Participant

    I made 4″ and 5″ bows from gray electrical conduit pvc for baby yokes. Filled with sand, warmed with a heat gun (made to strip varnish from wood) then bent around coffee can. Made white pvc ones too with MODA at Tillers, formed around a wood template for 6″, 7″, 8″ bows. Put wooden dowel into ends of those to strengthen . This is just how we make pvc bows in Uganda in our Peaceharvest projects. Fill the pvc with sand/dirt, heat over open fire, bend around a jig, shave dowels to strengthen sides, drill bow pin holes. Sand not only keeps the pipe from flattening, but I think also holds and evenly disperses the heat for bending.

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