New Bows!!!

[Riounis]

After 6 months of being taunted by my beautiful staves, I am finally ready to make my bows. I have enough wood for 3 bows, and I have cut boards from which to make them from Black Walnut, Red Maple, and Hickory. I feel like I should make a Maple backed Walnut bow, and a Hickory backed Maple bow, but Walnut and Hickory have a lot of the same properties, should I make two selfbows from those?

[crooketarrow]

  HICKORYS a way better bow wood than WALLNUT
 I'd diffently use HICKORY for backing both MAPLE or WALLNUT if I had to. Although MAPLE also a good backing but a better core wood.

[tattoo dave]

I have made a few self bows from all of them. Hickory and walnut will work great, if you are going to back one, back the maple, but again not a necessity. Good luck, and don't forget to share some pics. Welcome to PA!!

Tattoo Dave

[Slackbunny]

I've worked with maple a couple of times, and I've got one real nice shooter out of it, and would have had another, but I made a careless mistake, and snap! I didn't back the good one with anything because it had some nice birdseye in it and I haven't had any problems.

But I havn't worked with black walnut except for tips or risers, and I have never worked with hickory at all.

[Riounis]

I guess a lot of it is just personal preference. I prefer walnut any day to hickory. And thanks, I'll use the hickory and walnut as backs to the maple bows. Thanks a lot! I'll post some of the pics soon.

[okie64]

I would definitely use the hickory for backing either the maple or walnut. If you've got them sawed into board form and there are ring violations on the back then definitely back them. I've used sugar maple as a backing before and it works ok but I'm not sure about red maple as a backing.

[Riounis]

Well, I have cleaned up my shop a bit and have everything set to back the bows tomorrow, and what I have decided to do is a walnut backed maple bow, a hickory backed walnut bow, a hickory selfbow, and a maple selfbow. If I can get that many out of my boards... I will be starting with the walnut backed maple bow.

Also, a question for all of you, does it hurt a bow to woodburn a design into it?

[Josh B]

IMHO, I would rethink the walnut backed maple.  I've made several walnut selfbows and walnut is not the most tension strong wood. If your maple is hard maple, the walnut probably won't  hold up to the compression strength of the maple.  Maple backed walnut would serve you much better.  Good luck, Josh 

[Riounis]

I was having doubts about that. You'll notice that the first thing that I said in this thread was maple backed walnut. But it dosn't matter. I have so much wood, I can try everything out. And bowmaking is fun, I know I'll break a few, but maybe I'll find a good one. There is no doubt that the first bow I work on in this thread will have some combination of maple and walnut.
Thanks,
 And I could use some advice, should I woodburn a cool leaflet design into one of my hickory bows, or would that make it a showpiece and not a functional bow?

[Josh B]

You can burn into the belly if you don't go deeper than the surface, but most definitely NOT on the back.   Josh

[Riounis]

I am sad to report that I have not been able to work on, and will not be able to work on these bows for a while. I am busy with my eagle project and planning a dance for an organization I am in, but I will post pics from my bows whenever I can.