Hello, I am not new to this forum but decided maybe it is time to share some activity. I have been building bows for the last few years, mostly selfbows with a few wood laminates and oh I have spent the last 4 years trying to build a turkish hornbow all ending failure so far. I currently live in Sioux Falls, SD.
Two new bows to share, I think I got a little sloppy on the tillering, some of it I will blame on kinks in the stave but I could have been a bit more careful. The maple bow is armstrong maple which is a newer designer tree where they crossed a norway maple for its strength and beauty with a silver maple for its quick growth. I would classify this wood as "poor" and probably not much better than silver maple. As nice as horn nocks are I was forced to use some kind of overlays as during the tillering the wood was so soft that the string cut into the tips and they splinter off, this brought the bow from a starting length of 70" down to its current length of 66". The limbs are 2" wide and narrow down to 1/2". The final weight came in at 45 pounds at 28 inches.
The second bow is buckthorn which around here is on the invasive and noxious weed list. I cut down the tree late last fall and imeadiatly striped the bark off and reduced down the stage to roughly the final dimensions. As I understand buckthorn it is horrible at splitting during drying. I would guess that cutting it down late in the fall was key. The stave was quite straight with one large bend, I did my best to steam bend the kink out of the upper limb. The bow is 68" long and 1 1/2" wide just past the handle fades, with ipe tips. The bows weighs 50 pounds at 28 inches.
For both bows I applied 3 coats of my own varnish. The varnish is 2 parts linseed oil to 1 part dammar resin. I started by cooked the resin until it turned liquid, then I added preheated oil. I continued to cook this mixture at approx 300 celsius until the mixture became homogeneous. I let it cool down to under 150 celsius and added in the turpentine for a final ratio of:
60% (240g) Linseed oil
30% (120g) Dammar resin
10% (40g) Turpentine
I will try to post more about the varnish sometime, so far I really enjoy working with it, I used a good quality turpentine which gives the varnish a beautiful smell. Enjoy the pictures, please share any comments, and thank you for this great forum.
