My apologies for any of you guys who hang out on here and paleoplanet having to see these twice, but I wanted to post my bows on both forums as they have given me so much inspiration and knowledge.
To cut a long story short, I lost my job. Bummer. However the silver cloud is that I’m still on the pay role for two years! What would you guys do with time on your hands?
What follows are my successes and failures in bow making –
Rowan 68”long, 40# @ 28”, backed with linen. I only backed it because it had a few marks from harvesting. I tried to make it look like bark. Unlike a Hazel bow I just finished (I hate hazel!!!!!! You’ll see why soon) this bow has no crysals. It is a little on the light side, draw weight wise, but it shoots good.
Next up - Purging Buckthorn Rhamnus cathartica.This tree is similar to Alder Buckthorn (another wood I have on my list to try as a bow wood, in the past Alder Buckthorn with its Yellow wood was used to make the charcoal in early gunpowder) easy way to tell them apart is the berries, red for Alder Buckthorn, black for Purging Buckthorn. And yes the purging bit in the name is because they used to use the berries to purge themselves, it was considered a kill or cure remedy and not recommended. The bark and berries can be used to make yellow dye; the bark can reputedly be a skin irritant, I had no problems but suspect that as with all things it may give some folk problems so be careful.
The bow is 68" long, backed with linen; it pulls 45# @ 28". It has an uneven un-braced profile but sorts itself out nicely when strung. It has a few wiggles that made tillering fun and an amazing bird’s eye effect in the grain, I tried to capture it in some of the pictures but I’m not sure it comes out. I didn’t heat treat it or correct it at all; I wanted to see how the wood performs as is before I go crazy with the heat gun. The handle is a simple hemp sting wrap with a coat of TB3, tips are IPE. I have made three bows from this wood and would recommend it as a self-bow wood up to the 50# mark, anything over that would be a real challenge, but no doubt could be done. A word of caution, in some languages it’s known as brittle wood.
Black thorn -
Prunus Spinoza. This is one of my favourite trees (more often a bush than tree) I have carved a few spoons out of it and my wife uses the berries to make a lovely tipple called sloe gin. Anyone who has come across this wood will soon notice how tough it is. TBB4 has it with an SG87, I just had to try it as a bow wood.
Years past and I’m on my way home on my bike passing by a hedge that had been machanicaly trimmed. The hedge had been well cut back making it easier for me to ride my bike, but it had taken back quite a bit of growth. I made the journey many times on my bike until I spotted this cut branch left snagged in the trees. I stopped and pushed my way into the bushes to retrieve it, all the time thinking, it’ll never make a bow, it’s been there far too long. It will be eaten out by wasps and worms and have checks running up and down, why am I pushing my way into blackthorn bushes getting all snagged and scratched? I finally got it out onto the path and was pleasantly surprised, this one was going back to the lab!
I used a hatchet to rough it out, then a rasp and onto a scraper. It did have a few worm holes, only one remains in the final bow the rest got worked away in the tillering process. I think the last worm hole looks kind of neat so I filled it with super glue.
To me this is the epitome of a self-bow, a stick and a string. I’m not sure I want to even put a handle on it. This bow does “register a discharge” as it’s a bendy everywhere bow, but the hand shock isn’t too bad and with a handle and some heavy arrows its more than manageable. And considering it was a really easy bow to make, probably no more than 5 hours work in this bow, I can handle a little hand shock. It also gave me the confidence that should I have to, I could make a hard hitting bow in the woods with basic tools in short measure.
Its 65” long, buffalo horn overlays, 68# @ 27”
More soon.
