It's been two years since I visited the last Euromeet in Bulgaria, a bowyers meeting organized by a member on PaleoPlanet. Unfortunately, this summer there appears to be no international meeting due to various circumstances. Nevertheless I kept the Bulgarian legacy alive by creating this flatbow from a stave of black locust (
Robinia pseudo-acacia) I was able to bring back home from the Euromeet in 2010. I felt privileged to be able to attend that meeting and meet everyone that was present. Iliana, our host and mother, kindly provided us with a large supply of ash and black locust. I had plenty of wood myself, so I didn't get the first pick. That means the stave I took had some knots to deal with. But the stave was fairly straight, had good rings, and looks pretty good besides the knots. I knew from the
Euromeet 2008 that black locust from Bulgaria is better than the locust from my own country, so it was a logical step to turn this second pick stave into a sweet bow.
The sapwood was removed, except for a small streak over the handle, where I left one layer of extra wood. The removal of bark and sapwood allows you to see what's underneath. As soon as the back was nice and clean, I could lay out the bow in width. I avoided a few knots near the tips and placed a few other knots in the center of the limbs. I'd rather have a knot in the center of the width, than on the edge of the limb. It's a pretty straight forward flatbow, nearly a pyramid. The tips are pretty narrow (about 3/8") and have small overlays to avoid cutting grooves in the sides of the tips. I embedded a small Jay feather onto the lower limb with some varnish, just to add a small personal touch. Tillering was not difficult, but the small knots made for a few stiff spots. Especially the upper midlimb appears somewhat stiff, due to an elongated cluster of small knots. I couldn't make this section bend, so I had to compensate by leaving the bow a bit long with 71 inches. The bow has not been heat treated or - corrected and has maybe 1½" of set.
Some statistics:Black locust selfbow.
Mexican Kingwood tip overlays.
Leather handle with small leather arrow rest.
71" NTN
53#@28"
Finish is water based varnish.
Well, the pictures! I did my best, hope you like them
Unbraced side profile. Pardon the ugly camera tripod.
Front (width) profile.
Braced.
Full draw.
Tip detail. You can see the overlay and ring count as well.
My two most recent bows, along with a batch of bamboo arrows.
The other bow is a yew English longbow. I'll create a topic for that one later
Comments or suggestions are always most welcome.
Jorik
