Carving on another silver maple sapling... *Finished with full draw and video*

[toomanyknots]

I forgot how soft this wood can be. The shortest I have made a bow from this wood is 78" nock to nock, this one is around 73", so wish me luck. It's a bit snakey, which is of course not great for a longbow. The stave has a good amount of knots, but luckily not threw the back. About an inch of reflex.

[George Tsoukalas]

Looks challenging. Jawge

[toomanyknots]

Well, it had a deflex in one limb, so once again that deflex is fatter, and the other limb was a bit more reflexed, so that limb is of course a bit weaker to bring about the tiller. So that means that my arrow pass will be a good deal higher than center I guess to balance the draw?  Instead of twisting out or nothing, the twist has seemed to stay in the bow, and looks pretty cool or funny lookin from the shooters prospective, although it is hard to show on camera. The bow is so light, silver maple is a very light wood. Although it is also very soft, but seems to spring back pretty good. I have heard that is chrysals pretty bad, so I probably won't never make nothing from it but longbows. I have some pretty cool looking problem free knots on the sides of this bow. Sometimes I feel like I wasted my time going and cutting this sapling or that sapling the year before, not even knowing for sure sometimes what wood it is, but this time I think I am happy I cut this tree, simply cause it was fun to make this one. Anyway, finally, were getting somewhere...

EDIT: Don't know the weight yet, maybe 50# - 55# @ 28", 71 3/4" nock to nock, upper limb has 5/8" set, bottom limb has 1 1/2" set, bow has been pulled to 26" on the tree and probably 28" by hand.

[DRon knife]

Can some heat help to straighten it some? Ron

[toomanyknots]

Can some heat help to straighten it some? Ron

Probably could. The string is not off center though, and the tiller looks good. (will update with full draw in a bit...) To note though, I don't use a heat gun or even have one. 

[toomanyknots]

Ok, done with this one. Turned out 50# @ 28". 69" nock to nock. Got a chrsyal on the bottom limb after shooting it in a good bit, but no excess set and seems to be doing ok so far. It is a nice bow to shoot. Top limb is the deflexed limb. Horn nocks are from rudderbows. The bow is very light.









Video of the bow shooting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMG-GF8xauk

[toomanyknots]

Thank you.  It's a really soft wood, I had to use some extra cushioning to keep from denting the bow when roughing it out.  I made a longer one a while back that turned out really nice, ended up selling it though...

[Judo Point]

Nice job! I just watched the video she looks like a shooter!

[Eric Krewson]

You are a right handed shooter but nocking the arrow on the wrong side of the bow. You have it on the right side for a righty thumb ring shooter or a lefty.

[toomanyknots]

You are a right handed shooter but nocking the arrow on the wrong side of the bow. You have it on the right side for a righty thumb ring shooter or a lefty.

I know, I just am used to it. 

Nice job! I just watched the video she looks like a shooter!

Thank you, the arrows I am shooting are actually pretty heavy for the bow, 3/8" poplar dowels 30" long finished with tung oil. I forget how heavy the field points are, I am thinking 100 grams (or is that grains?) though, it's really just the tung oil that made the arrows so heavy. I don't have a way to weight grains though. But it shoots alot better with some lighter arrows.

[Pat B]

Nice bow and beautiful full draw pic. Like Eric I thought it strange you shoot from the "wrong" side of the bow. With your fingers releasing the arrow to the left I would think you wouldn't get good arrow flight.

[toomanyknots]

Nice bow and beautiful full draw pic. Like Eric I thought it strange you shoot from the "wrong" side of the bow. With your fingers releasing the arrow to the left I would think you wouldn't get good arrow flight.

Thank you pat. You know, you might be right. I've never really tried to learn to shoot on the other side, so I can't really say myself. I have been meaning to learn the other way, but I just never really like it and it never feels right. LOL

[k-hat]

On your next bow one deflexed and one reflexed limb, try matching the tiller to the unbraced profile.  That is, tiller for even bend from the unbraced look.  That's probly why you got the chrysal in one limb.  Those limbs as they are are not "sharing the load".  Gun Doc did a good job explaining this on a previous bow i did that had SERIOUS deflex and reflex differences.  Profile didn't change much, during tiller, brace looks funky and full draw funkier, but she shoots sweet and is the quickest bow i've seen for it's weight.  No hand shock either.

That said, she is a perty one and i am partial to the "bare naked" look of the wood

[toomanyknots]

I know just what you mean khat. And I think you are right, as you can see from the stave pic compared to the braced pic how much more the reflexed limb had to bend to reach the same position as the limb with the deflexed spot. While I do agreed with you, from a personal stand point (when one limb is reflexed and the other deflexed on a stave) I prefer to tiller the bow to a pleasing tiller to my eye first, and then adjust the nocking point of the arrow to accommodate for any unbalance in the draw until the bow is working evenly and able to shoot accurately. Usually just by feel. But that is just what I personally like to do myself, I wouldn't say it is the best thing to do by any means. If the bow was fully deflexed on one limb, and fully deflexed on the other, I think it gets a bit easier, as you can reflex the deflexed limb. But the trouble starts when you have a small spot of deflex or a little bend of deflex, the only way I have been able to counter act that is to leave more wood there and have it not work as much. Which is of course exactly what your talking about, not having the bow working evenly...  I have tried it the other way, trying to get the small spot of deflex to work, but the tiller always gets away from me and the deflex spot becomes a hinge almost 100 percent of the time, last time I tried to do that was on a mulberry longbow. The tiller on that bow did turn out asymetrical (before it blew at a pin knot from my dumb self sanding right threw it). When I was trying to make my first couple longbows, I read a little guide this guy posted on his website (http://www.alanesq.com/, heres the guide: http://www.alanesq.com/longbow/bsb/The-Back-Street-Bowyer-263.pdf) But in it one thing he said was in the case of a small hill in the back, to try to keep the belly somewhat straight as opposed to following the back to a T, or the that spot may become a weak spot in the tiller. I do notice that bows like this, while pleasing to the eye, may have some extra handshock from one limb being heavier than the other.