My DIY Beta-Release

Today I introduce my just finished selfmade "Beta-Release". The reason why I built this is: I wanted to shoot my 70 pound compound bow in a more 'instinctive' way.

Instinctive shooting of a compound??
YES, for me that means: No fancy stuff on the bow, no sights, no scope, no peep and no bulky expensive release. The Beta-Release is made from one piece of aluminum and it has no moving parts. Its design is dead simple and it performs as acurate as much more expensive releases. At first I wanted to shoot the bow completely without any release. But that did not worked, because the bow is very short. The angle of the string is squeezing the fingers too hard

The release design was inspired by a picture from Istvan Girizd that he posted on facebook. With these pictures in mind I built the first prototype from ply-wood - my "Delta-Release". But it turned out, that the design of that release only works for bows with a relatively low draw weight. (I nearly lost a finger when I tried to shoot my 70 pound compound bow with it)

I took a further look into the internet and found pictures of the 6-Gold release. This was produced in the 60s and cannot be bought today anymore.

They have a nearly equal design - the only difference is: the string of the bow is not placed behind the release but behind a small hook in front of the release. And this fact saves your index finger when you shoot heavy draw weights. As said before, these releases are not sold anymore. I found a nearly similar product from A+ Slingshots that was a little bit too expensive (I'm a man on a tight budget ;) ).









So I made a release by myself, starting with a simple aluminum bar. And after hours of file work and sanding it is finally ready. I'm very happy with it - it's accurate, small, durable and it feels comfortable. It gives me the proud feeling to made something by myself, that really worked in the end. 

This picture shows, how the "Beta-Release" is held and how the hook grabs into the string.

To release the arrow, I simply have to straighten my index finger. (I know: There is no arrow in this picture ;) )











I hope you liked it. Have a nice day - and keep curious!

The creation of my DIY custom bow

I always wanted to build a takedown recurve bow by myself. In the past I already made a selfbow and a pvc bow - both with a very low draw-weight. With this project I really did not knew where to start - so I watched a lot of youtube videos and gathered as much as possible knowledge. 

Then, everything started with a drawing that I made on the backside of an old calendar.I took the main measurements from an existing bow, but made the look much more biological. I do not wanted any hard edges on that bow. The sight-window will be a wide curve to let the archer see as much as possible of the target.

I scanned the sketches into the computer and made an Adobe Illustrator file out of it. The first drafts involved the idea to make the riser from two different coloured woods. But I did not know how to saw the elliptical form. So I decided to make a simple prototype from ply-wood. Nothing fancy for the first prototype.















Then I glued (Uhu Endfest 300) three layers of two centimeter thick ply-wood together to a big block and glued printings of my Illustrator-file on top of that. The next step was to saw everything out with a jigsaw and a lot (!!!) of work on the belt sander.



A lot of sanding with sand paper followed and a varnish with linseed oil.



Now I prepared the parts of the riser where the limbs gets attached.

Then I built the riser plates from stainless steel. I brazed three pieces to an "H" shape and drilled the holes for the limb skrews.
 

I installed the thread inserts in the riser and glued the riser plates into place.

 

Finally here are some impressions of the completed riser.

DIY Serving String Tool

Today I needed a serving string tool and decided to make one by myself. It took me 15 minutes to make it. It works like a charm ...

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