Lenape Bow

[Marc St Louis]

A guy recently asked me to make him a bow that would have been used by the natives of his area, he requested that I use Elm.  There were a few NDN that inhabited his area, I chose to make him a Delaware replica.  I found an Elm stave I had cut probably some 20 years ago tucked away in the attic of my house, it came from a small diameter tree.  It had dried with quite a bit of reflex, which amounted to about 3" by the time I cut it down to length.  I figured that with his 29.5" draw I would need to make the bow a bit longer than the museum bow I was copying, I chose 65".  After roughing it out and floor tillering I did a bit of heat-treating.  It had enough reflex so I didn't bother adding any but by the time I straightened the one end to match the other, it had some deflex near one end, it ended up with about 5".  I could tell from tillering that this wood was good, it hardly lost any reflex and ended up keeping nearly 2" by the time I finished the bow.  The bow is 65" long and just over 1 1/4" wide with a finished draw weight of just under 50# @ his draw length.  He also wanted some target arrows, a couple stone tipped arrows and a quiver.  I have the bow drawn to 30" in the full draw  Here's a few pics

[George Tsoukalas]

Came out great, Marc! Jawge

[chuckduster01]

Simply elegant and elegant in it's simplicity.  Thank you for sharing as I am working very hard to take the "complexity" out of my bows.  Fighting my brain is an uphill battle on that subject I spose.

[Drewster]

Your customer should be delighted with this bow Marc.  Very nicely done.....highly effective simplicity.

[mullet]

Looks real good, Marc. It should sling an arrow or two.

[Ken S]

that is a very nice set he should be glad to have it.

[wizardgoat]

Nice and simple. Cool
Bow.

[Marc St Louis]

Thanks guys

I don't have a 30" draw but it shoot quite well at my draw length.  There's no finish on the bow as he wants to do some artwork on it

[Hrothgar]

Nice looking bow Marc, excellent tiller.

[Chadwick]

I love the bend. Is the full-draw picture from before you tapered the nock tips?

[Arrowind]

NICE!

[bushboy]

Looks great!gotta love elm!

[Marc St Louis]

Thanks guys

The full draw was before I finished the nocks

[rossfactor]

Pretty amazing how much reflex that bow retained, for a long draw like that. Bet she really zips an arrow. Have you ever noticed a difference between reflex induced with heat and reflex picked up in the drying process?

Gabe

[Del the cat]

Woo, great tiller.
I'd like to know how far that would throw a 30" flight arrow!
Del