Thank you for the comments everyone
@SeanStuart and @matthijsc: this bow was finished with a water based parquetry varnish, Hermadix brand.
@okie64 and @killir duck: you are right!
This bow is inspired by Druid! The pic on top of that fencepost gives it away. I tried to copy his photography as well.
@Pearl Drums: I'm used to nock overlays, which I purposely did not want to add to this stickbow. Normally I file in a string groove only to the back of the bow (overlay) and not on the sides. In this case, I had to file in the grooves on the sides of the limbs. When rounding the corners of the grooves, they kinda automatically grooved the back a little. If that makes sense. It's funny you all notice the string groove... It's really minor, in my opinion. Only 1/16" deep. There's still 7/16" of wood underneath the string groove, so plenty of thickness for the draw weight. It also has plenty of width at the tips, and combined with the fact that this is not a ring porous wood (which is more sensitive to string grooves cut into the back), I'm not so worried. The other nock has hardly any groove in the back.
@Jodocus: no heat correction was performed. It wasn't really necessary either, although there is a little bit of reflex and deflex here and there. I was indeed lucky to find this stave. I have one more stave of this wood left (same quality), but that's probably it. I doubt I can ever find more of this dogwood. However, I have just harvested two more staves of
Cornus sanguinea a few days ago
Here in Europe, we have two indigenous species of
Cornus. Cornelian cherry, and common dogwood. I have not yet tried the
Cornus sanguinea, but it is said to be excellent bow wood, although slightly less than
Cornus mas. The fresh wood seems very similar, although maybe slightly less dense. I should be able to compare the two species, once this new
Cornus sanguinea has dried. Probably takes another two years at least...
@mikekeswick: following the undulations was the most time consuming part. You want a knot to be little bit stiff, but how can you do that with 19 knots? I meticulously followed every bump of the back with a little dip on the belly. You can see that nicely in the pic where the belly is facing up. It made tillering difficult for sure. A scraper is useless with this many knots.
I would have no problem finding a 12" section of this dogwood, but it will probably have knots every 3-4 inches, just like this stave. The longest section of clean wood in this bow is 13 cm.
