Ottawa Plum Bow

[Badger]

   I think plum would have been the longbow wood of choice instead of yew had sufficient quantities of straight wood been available. Not taking anything way from yew which is fantastic, I just think plum is first grade wood in all respects. Jaro made a long bow from plum a few years ago. I need to check with him on how it came out.

[Scottski]

Very nice bow Sir.

[redhawk55]

Marc, this is a great bow! Even I wouldn't know the bowyer, I would guess Marc St. Louis is the bowyer. The bow is definitely Marc. St.Louis- style.
Any chronos?
All the plum I've came across. was heavily twisted and splintered. Years ago I shot a plum- bow. I guess a clean plum stave is as good as osage.
Michael

[Marc St Louis]

Thanks again

Finding wood that is relatively clean of branches is a problem.  In some ways it is easier to work than Osage

I've been shooting the bow on and off and it is very fast, considerably faster than the 3 lam ERC bow I made a few months ago of the same draw weight and they both have about the same amount of reflex.

[Aussie Yeoman]

Hi Marc,

could you spare a moment to go through how you split up the dimensions of this bow? As in, upper/lower limb, height above center of the arrow pass, that sort of thing.

On backing twisted wood: if the backing is sound, you can use pretty much any grained wood you like. I used to agonise over picking just the right board for bamboo backing, and discovered years later, to my delight, that I could use highly figured, twisted and knotted wood...saving myself lots of time in the timber shop and making more interesting looking bows.

Dave

[Marc St Louis]

Equal length limbs Dave put the arrow pass about 1 1/2" above center

[Aussie Yeoman]

Thanks Marc.

Is that a fairly standard configuration, even in your shorter bows?

[Marc St Louis]

I prefer equal length limbs Dave