Backing with Bark

[Fumbles]

Hello, I was just rereading the Traditional Bowyer's Bible Vol. 1 and in the "other backings" section, they mention success in using bark of wild cherry trees and shagbark hickory to back bows successfully. I'm curious if anyone here has tried it with success and could give me a breakdown of how they went about it.

Where I am, I have access to a lot of birch, and was thinking about backing my next bow with birch bark.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate any advice you have on how to accomplish this.


-Fumbles

[rossfactor]

There's some good tutorial on this in the tutorial section. http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,2366.0.html

On some woods, such as plum you can leave the bark on the stave if the stem diameters is small (say less than 3 inches or so).

Gabe

[DarkSoul]

Run a search for "cherry bark" in the forums. You'll dig up plenty of useful info. You could try "brich bark" as well, but most results and thus topics, have been obtained using cherry bark.

[BowEd]

Fumbles I know what you mean.I think bark backed bows look great too.A bit of work though.Birch bark is my choice to go over a sinewed maple I have here.What I did was peel,scrape and sand the bark down to at least 1/32nd inch thick.It is very pliable then like a thin piece of leather.Choice is up to you as to which side you want to use and I used bark from a large diameter tree.I will show the inside of the bark on the bow with the lines going lengthwise of the bark on the bow.That nice creamy brown color.The outside of the bark is glued to the bow.

[Fumbles]

Thanks guys for the speedy response!

And thanks for the link rossfactor. But I have a question about the glue used in the build along. Is Titebond II just normal carpenter's glue? I live in Canada and have never seen this brand before.

-Fumbles

[rossfactor]

Titebond 2 would be fine for a bark backing.