Newbie questions about sapling bows

[SyF]

Hi, I'm just starting bowmaking. Cut four saplings from common local wood. First a couple of alder for practice, then a  black locust and vine maple. They are dry and I'm beginning to tiller.

1. I roughed out the wet saplings with a hatchet and then clamping in some recurve and let dry. Couldn't get as much recurve/decurve as I wanted. Limbs were a little thick. Would heat help? would it work on wet wood? Any tricks to divine how much clamping you can do without breaking the limb, or is it just experience? Should I clamp lightly and use heat after tillering is almost done if  more curve is needed?

2. With a symmetrical bow - centered handle, centered hand, arrow on top of hand - it seems the arrow will ride a couple of  inches high. Is that right?

3. Is vine maple any good for bows? They grow like weeds around here. How does it compare to sugar, big leaf and other maples. The green saplings seem to be pretty low density and crack and splinter easy.

thanks

[Ifrit617]

Welcome to the sight! you will find the people on here extremely helpful... To answer your questions...

1. Bending wood while it is green works well for mild recurves, though I would not try to put in major ones, unless hea or steam is used. I have however put around 4 inches of reflex into a drying sapling however, by claping down the center and putting a block under each tip.

2. On all my bows the arrow is about 1.5 inches above center, since if you shoot three under or split finger, the pressure will mostly be centered by the center.

3. Vine maple is an excellent bow wood. Do a search on some of Gordon's vine maple bows... Some are simply stunning!

Jon

[George Tsoukalas]

Use steam on green wood. Vine maple is a good bow wood. My site may help you. Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/

[aaron]

Vine maple is great wood! Where you from?

[markinengland]

Syf,
if you haven't seen them yet look out for the 4 volumes of the Bowyers Bible. Great reading!

[SyF]

Vine maple is great wood! Where you from?

Pacific Northwest. updated my profile accordingly

Syf, if you haven't seen them yet look out for the 4 volumes of the Bowyers Bible. Great reading!

got a couple from the library and slowly working my way through them.

----
Really glad I started with the alder saplings. They have the least value as bow wood, but are easy to work and practice on.

----

question 4.
the bark came off real easy earlier in the year, but the last sapling was cut later and the bark won't peel off. Is there a way to rectify this, like soaking overnight?

[youngbowyer]

Just remove the outer bark with a drawknife(if you dont have one you can fashon one using a kitchen knife) and then gently scrape the inner bark using the knife at a right angle to the sapling. Get some more of that vine maple and maybe you can even find some yew in your area.

[aaron]

Vine maple bark is tough to get off if not harvested in mid summer. i have tried soaking and steaming with no success. be very careful if you use a metal tool to debark VM- you'll damage the back- especially at the bumps and knots. I use a bone knife and it takes a while.

[randman]

Vine maple is the hardest and springiest of the maples I've used. I've also used the Big leaf western maple branches and saplings and it seems like a much softer wood and sounds more like your description of low density and brittle. Both grow right together. VM has a small fat roundish 5 pointed star shaped leaf and thin bright green bark. I have only harvested VM in the summer and after I rough hatchet it to floor tillered stage I strip the bark of immediately (don't want to strip any more bark than I have to). But strap it to a board unless you want a lot of reflex cuz its going to dry looking like a crab bow. While it is green would be the time to strap it down shape the tips if you want recurves. Dries pretty fast but it's much easier to work green - gets real hard. Got some that is seasoned over a year and it is tough stuff. I've only picked small saplings (1" to 4" dia) using the topside of an almost horizontal sapling (grow that way lots around here (Wenatchee Nat. Forest- Gifford Pinchot) or a sapling with a lot of up curve. Now I have to deal with the reflex

[SyF]

Vine maple is the hardest and springiest of the maples I've used. I've also used the Big leaf western maple branches and saplings and it seems like a much softer wood and sounds more like your description of low density and brittle. Both grow right together. VM has a small fat roundish 5 pointed star shaped leaf and thin bright green bark.

I think it's VM but could be wrong. It had the thin green bark, was growing like weeds in the undergrowth of a friends farm. After some drying it's gotten very hard and tough - big difference. I'll take a closer look at the leaves next time.

[SyF]

The first alder is comming along. While tillering there was a nasty pop and puff of dust - 40# @22". I though it broke, but it was only the thin papery bark that I hadn't fully stripped. I scraped the area around the pop and the wood underneath looks good (see picture).

question 5.
Does the sapling stave have to be fully stripped for or can I just let the thin papery bark remnants pop off during tillering?

question 6.
What scrapper shapes do you use the most. I have an old hand saw ready to be recycled into scrapers.

[randman]

question 5.
Does the sapling stave have to be fully stripped for or can I just let the thin papery bark remnants pop off during tillering?

question 6.
What scrapper shapes do you use the most. I have an old hand saw ready to be recycled into scrapers.

If you enjoy having the crap scared outa ya just leave it on and let if pop off a occasionally. And then one day, your bow will do the same thing. My experience with alder has not been good. both bows i tried with it exploded. BANG! One had a silk backing (on a flawless back) and the tiller looked great , just gettin ready to shoot it and BANG! We have so many other great bow woods easily accessed here in the NW (like your Vine Maple). I would even put the lowly non-native Scotchbroom right up with the top ones on the list. I would put alder towards the bottom of my list - more of a "if it's the only thing around" an I'm not in any danger of that in my neighborhood. JMHO and limited experience. If anyone has made a good long lasting bow of Alder please chime in.

For a scraper, I just use a sharp 3 1/4" blade folding pocket knife (held vertical) - you got a flat area for flat scraping and a more rounded areas for more scooping cuts - all on one blade!. Though hand saws do make great scrapers!

[George Tsoukalas]

If you could curve one of those scrapers you'd be all set. Jawge

[SyF]

question 7. while scraping the back to get the last of the bark off, I made a couple of blemishes - should these be dressed or repaired, or are they minor enough to ignore? First is on the crown, the second is half way between the crown and belly.