Author Topic: ceder bow  (Read 5189 times)

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Offline Carson (CMB)

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Re: ceder bow
« Reply #15 on: June 26, 2012, 02:22:59 am »
Sound maker.  Challenges are definitely teaching tools.  I feel like tillering certain whitewoods, has made me much better at tillering osage, than if I had only tillered osage.  From what I have gathered, the natives incorporated a very wide and thin design, sinew-backed, with almost as much sinew as wood to make those short cedar bows fling em far.   I am interested in what you learn, as I want to tackle an incense cedar short bow soon.  Good luck!
"The bow is the old first lyre,
the mono chord, the initial rune of fine art
The humanities grew out from archery as a flower from a seed
No sooner did the soft, sweet note of the bow-string charm the ear of genius than music was born, and from music came poetry and painting and..." Maurice Thompso

Offline Gordon

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Re: ceder bow
« Reply #16 on: June 26, 2012, 02:55:34 am »
Sound Maker, I get the impression that you are relatively new to bow making (though perhaps I am wrong). Attempting advanced designs when you are a beginner doesn't, in general, yield more growth than sharpening your skills on more conventional designs. In Dark Soul's defense, I think he was only trying to spare you unnecessary frustration. Good luck with your project - I look forward to seeing the result.
Gordon

Offline DarkSoul

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    • Orion Bows
Re: ceder bow
« Reply #17 on: June 26, 2012, 05:33:21 am »
Sound maker, no offense taken. I know that basically "any" wood CAN make a bow. You 'just' have to design it accordingly. All I'm saying: Western red cedar is very, very low on the bowwood scale. Since I guess that you are quite new to bow building (correct me if I'm wrong), and you have already broken a piece of this cedar, and you are trying out a rather complex design that requires a very good bowwood, I just want to save you the disappointment. There's just too many ifs and buts in your plan to guarantee a succesful outcome. If you're after gaining some experience in wood working, then you can go ahead and continue. But if you want to make a bow that actually works, I think there's a ton of better woods and easier designs. A non bowwood such as Western red cedar requires a design that puts a really low pressure on the limbs. Very wide, flat and long limbs are crucial for those weak woods. Three things you probably can't incorporate in your design.

One of the things that stil bothers me, is that you still don't actually know the wood species. It matters a lot! You really need to figure out what species of wood you have. I know that native people have used various 'cedars' as bowwoods, including Eastern red cedar (not a cedar but a juniper) and incense cedar (not a true cedar either). I don't know if they used Western red cedar, but if they did, I would not be surprised they used a meticulously chosen branch of compression wood. And then there is Spanish cedar, white cedar, Lebanon cedar etc. etc... All with completely different properties of the wood, so all need to be designed differently as well.
"Sonuit contento nervus ab arcu."
Ovid, Metamorphoses VI-286

Offline sound maker

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Re: ceder bow
« Reply #18 on: June 26, 2012, 06:47:33 am »
Yes I am still somewhat new to bow making and yes I should be doing designs first that have show good with ok to good wood to get some practice which I have.

CMB: I will post as I get progress but I don't think incense ceder though. I will try to get a pick on Wednesday since I'll be going to where I got it from for you guys to id. By the way I not going to sinew it since I don't really have access to sinew so I'm either going to back it with something like burlap or go a to pet store and get some rawhide. (don't have any plans to get to Seattle for the flax randman though I might be going there sometime in September)

Gordon: Yes I know he was informing me but I just wanted it be clear I know and I do thank  his for his advice it just I already know and planned for it and the wood was free so I decide to test out the wood and see how I measure up.

Darksoul: Yes I did break it but that was due to me pulling it too far otherwise it would have work and been fine since I'm not doing the monsters let alone the hunting weight bows other people her make(not yet anyways, haven't getten the ipe cut yet and haven't gotten the bamboo either though the bigger scotishbroom might be 50# if I do this right but most likely not) . and yes I can get the betters wood from around (scotishbroom, juniper, ash,maple, seriveberry, oak, etc etc) and yes I don't really know what kind of ceder it is or if its ceder though I believe it is. I will get a pic posted and I'll do one of the bow. (thing still too stiff but its floor tiller so I'm just going to scrap, sand, scrap, sand, get annoy at my pace and get the rasp out and then work at getting the marks off then scrap, sand, scrap, sand. Did I meantion that this is the lower limb (I think) of the bow I was working on???
I am not the best but learn from the wise and you'll end up being called he best!
 What one person calls common sense another calls wisdom.