Red Elderberry bow/ bush to bow in three weeks

[fiddler49]

Red Elderberry bow, bend in the handle, 48 lbs @ 31" . 62" ntn, bamboo booster on belly is 39" long is just tied on. About 1/2" dia.
on one end and 9/16" at the other. The bamboo booster increased draw weight from 36 lbs @ 31" to 48 lbs @ 31" without changing the tiller. Tips were boiled 1/2 hour before flipping. Stave has a bit of a dog leg which puts the bow string to the edge of stave, all most center shot. I put string bridges on to bump out brace height an extra inch with out the extra strain on the limbs. Red elderberry here in Alaska doesn't usually grow longer than 3 or 4 feet before branching out. The wood has about the same specific gravity of hickory, .65 .It also has a large pith down the center. To tiller a small dia, stave like this you carve out the belly concave to keep the width.
which on this bow is 1 1/4" wide. No string follow, belly heat treated. Those arrows are 33 inches long My buddy Bill is modeling my bow for me and also shoots with a thumb ring.  cheers fiddler49

[Onebowonder]

Is the bamboo booster a whole round piece of cane or a flat split off of a bamboo cane.  I can't see it very well in the pix...

I have to say that I'm impressed with the way you are making a minimal amount of wood do a lot of work!

OneBox

[fiddler49]

Yes, it's a round piece of bamboo. If you keep the bamboo dia. smaller it doesn't take any string follow. You could also use two or three whole pieces of bamboo like in a bundle bow as long as the combined draw weight of just the bundle is less than the tillered stave the combined bundle and stave will keep the staves original tiller.
You could also use split pieces instead of rounds or and other sticks wood metal, plastic.  cheers fiddler49

[Joec123able]

Very nice tiller and over all sweet lookin bow !

[JonW]

I like how you don't just make a bow but think "What can I do with this?"  Good job Fiddler.

[Pappy]

Good looking tiller,sweet bow overall.
   Pappy

[BowEd]

Yesser that's using your head for more than a hat rack there.I like it.Sweet looking bow and wonderful job on it.

[autologus]

Does living in Alaska make you more ingenious or do you just have to have more ingenuity to live in Alaska?  Great bow by the way the tiller looks spot on and it just looks cool with the bamboo booster.

Grady

[Parnell]

Now that's an interesting bow.  Good work!

[David_Daugherty]

Very interesting craftmanship with that bow.  Nice tiller on it as well.

[fiddler49]

Thanks lads, hard to get much feed back from the guys around here. Not very many bowyers in Alaska.
cheers fiddler49

[Jodocus]

Very cool setup overall, nice bow.  I like that tie together approach, must be a northern thing.
 

[fiddler49]

Here's a few more pics before adding the bamboo booster.  cheers fiddler49

[Peacebow_Coos]

Very nice Fiddler, got some red elderberry waiting for my own experiment, good to know this species is bow worthy, and an sg like hickory?  I'll take it, it's weird with the nodes but they don't seem to make much difference huh?  my stave is around 60" i'm thinking down here in Oregon it seems to start dying/splitting itself before it gets much longer than 3-4 ft....I like the bamboo idea too, that's legit ingenuity right thur