68" Mulberry selfbow 55@28

[Sidewinder]

http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg233/KsDanny/Mulberry3-09/

68" Mulberry 55@28 heat treated semi pyramid.  1-7/16" at fades to 3/8 at the back of the nocks. 9/16 belly.
The first pic is my son Jordan at full draw. He pulls 28 and I am at 26 so I let him have the honors.

Harvested from a blow down by the Arkansas river near Mulvane, Ks. It had been laying there for a few months .I had my doubts as to the soundness of the wood, when splitting out the 16" diameter trunk.It was hollow, soggy and pithy in the center. None the less we proceeded as normal and hoped it would yield good bow wood. Getting those splits up the hill through the woods at such a steep incline was a challenge, but we were up for it. I hoped it would yield positive results. When I got it debarked it was hard to debark and get the sap wood off, it was a bit buggy on the bark side and pithy on the belly side but everything in between looked good. So I split off the sap wood and worked it down to a ring It had alot of streaks and checks in it but I went ahead and processed my share and set em aside to cure. I tried to build one a couple months ago and the bottom limb had a bad weak spot that was inherint in the wood and it failed early in the tillering process. This one here has me pleasantly surprised. The top limb was originally deflex about 4" and the bottom had a fairly light reflex. I heat treated it with my state of the art 10# per limb dumbell weights on a string and gravity pulling reflex while I cooked the belly good with a heatgun. I was worried all those cracks in the handle and streaks in the limbs would be sources of sure failure, but it never even creaked. It just goes to show, you don't know if a stave will yeild a bow until you try it . This one had me worried with all the cracks and flaws in the wood. As it turns out, all the flaws make it beautiful and unique. I will put the handle wrap and new string on it tomorrow and will post the handle wrap then. Hope you all enjoy it and please excuse my long windedness. Danny

[nickf]

lovely wood, beautyfull character
still those mid and outer limbs eh
haha! you're another double-poster it seems pp and pa

[El Destructo]

I love working with Mulberry....almost as nice of a wood as Osage....and the Color of Mulberry is great too....The Lineal Cracks are of no concern....but are you sure that the dark lines in this Wood are not Spalt??? I have seen a lot of Maple do this when the Fungus that sets in to Dead Wood spreads through it.....Hope I am wrong

[Pat B]

Nice bow. Outer limbs could work more but you can make those changes on your next.
   Generally mulberry heartwood is quite rot resistant. Like it's cousin osage even if the core is rotted and the sapwood has streaks the heartwood will be sound. Mulberry makes a great bow with many style options.

[Hrothgar]

Good looking bow. I really like the way you worked the cracks and stains into the handle area, it adds a lot of character. My first shooter and lightest bow was red mulberry.

[Dean Marlow]

Nice mulberry bow. A highly over looked bow wood. I take all the mulberry I can get my hands on. It is beautiful wood. Thanks for sharing. Dean

[Pappy]

Very nice work.Beautiful bow.
   Pappy

[Sidewinder]

Thanks again fellas. I appreciate the encouragment.

Ek Destructo...I don't know , it could be spalt. I had concerens about what it might be when I first saw it but it seems to have left enough of the wood alone to make a shooter.If it is something that continues to get worse it will show up eventually. Time will tell. In the mean time I will I will probabley try another piece here soon while I gvie my curing osage a little longer to get ready. I also have some cured black wlanut staves I though I might take a swing at. o that ought to be interesting.

  Im still not sure how to post the pics without the link but I added another one with the handle wrap done and a fulldraw on the tillering tree. Whenever o try and post using the additional options it says my file size is too large and there is an error. I don't understand how to reduces the size of the file.  Danny

[El Destructo]

Danny...I really like the Bow.....but do Us all a Favor....and do just a Bit more Scraping on the Mid to Outer Limbs ....they really need to be bending more in order to utilize all wood and keep the Bow from failure due to Hinges in both Limbs....Unless this is a Holmegaard Design with non working tips

[OldBow]

Nicely tillered and bookmarked for March Self Bow of the Month fun.  Thanks!

[sailordad]

i agree with el destructo,mid to oulter lims still need to bend.you did say it was a pyrimid style bow,correct.
if so then you really should get more of those limbs doing there share of the work.i wouldnt worry too much about
the drawweight at this point,just work on getting the tiller proper.
after a few more bows you will be getting the weight you want along with proper tiller.

good luck                                                              peace,
                                                                                  tim