Last spring I saw a post on C-list from a lady who was cutting down three 50' black locusts trees in her yard. I called her as she was literally watching the 3rd come down. The first 2 had already been cut up.
She sent me a couple quick pics, looked like a lot of wood so that same day after work I grabbed my passport and drove down to Bellingham. I had only been making bows for a few months then, it was my first time splitting and hauling wood. I was by myself, so I could only take a few hours of it. I filled my truck, gave her 50$ to help pay for the tree cutting, and ditched all the wood at my parents cabin.
Since then, Ive gone down every few weeks, debark, split, seal, and bring a load back to Vancouver. Its alot of work, you Osage guys must have strong backs!
I ended up with about 25-30 staves of varying quality.
This is my first go with black locust. Id always heard it frets very easily, so I went real slow, and made sure to never create a weak spot to worry about.
Im mostly a yew dude, but I gotta admit, this stuff is snappy. A possible choice for the bow trade, but I got plenty of time to crank out some more
I roughed it out green and clamped it to my caul for a while. It kept about 2" of reflex. It ended up being board flat, but after shooting it in it took a little more set. No heat treating, but on the next one I will.
56" ntn, 40# @ 26" slightly trapped back
horn tips, salmon skin off cuts. built up leather grip with hemp wrappings in the Strunk pattern. 10 strand fast flight. tru oil finish
thanks for looking
