slight five bend black locust

[bowsandroses]

Kind of long winded sorry. Been quite some time since I've been on but I figured I would post the only bow I've built this year. It is black locust I've had the stave around for a few years because a worm hole left minimal wood to work with and was positioned to be in mid limb. I took the back down two rings bellow sap wood and still had water stains from holes in sap wood. I also discovered a bullet hole complete with a little rot and a few cracks, luckily it was in the handle. Got out most of the lead, scraped away the little rot, filled with glue and sawdust and filled the digger hole as well. As I was afraid the bow came to weight before I got the digger hole out in mid bottom limb. At 16" draw while tillering a knot in the top limb that looked real good and solid cracked around the top. I super glued and went on at 20" the knot cracked across the center and a little bit in to the good wood running horizontal across limb. At this point I was ready to junk it but giving up before it's in two pieces just don't fly. I super glued again and covered with a 3 course 1"x 3" sinew patch. Tillered out to my draw at 27" shot several times and finished up with snake skin and elk antler overlays. snake skin had 3 bad tears one luckily in handle other two caused me to have to add two extra jute wraps to cover them up. Stave had natural reflex in handle and both tips. Deflex in mid bottom limb dead flat in mid top limb. Heated a little extra reflex in both tips, deflex mid in top limb to match bottom and bent the handle area a little to line up the tips. Left the 7" of both tips statick to help get as much weight as possible.
Finished out 56# @ 27" 62" NTN.     

[bowsandroses]

more pics

[bowsandroses]

the rest of pics

[Pappy]

Looks nice, bet she is smooth.
 Pappy

[ajbruggink]

Great work. Its cool how you overcame obstacles and came out with a great looking bow. I think the jute wrappings over the snakeskin look cool.

[bowandarrow473]

Great looking bow

[bradsmith2010]

nice save,,, I like the sinew patch,, congrats

[red hill]

Glad you stuck it out! I love a bow with all those curves.

[Drewster]

Now that's a story of persistence and dogged determination.  Congrats on a fine bow from a questionable start.

[bowsandroses]

Pappy this one is smooth, quite and a little quicker than I expected. thanks everyone glad you liked it usually the staves I work on for myself are staves I don't see fit to give to someone else and normally they go boom but I have high hopes for this one.

[Badly Bent]

Nicely done b&r. Even good clean black locust can be difficult to sneak a bow out of sometimes but getting a real nice bow like yours out of a stave with some 'issues' is a real accomplishment. The full draw looks good and I like the 5 bend profile you put in there, skins and wraps give it a nice look too. Nice bow.

[bowsandroses]

Thanks badly bent. The five bend came pretty easy four of five of the bends were already there just deflexed the top center and added a little to the tips. For sure on the black locust it seems some times where I expect a problem there is none but a worse one shows up where I never would have guessed. That is what this bow did to me, fooled again

[simson]

Sounds like a lot of work you put in there - but it came out very eye pleasing.
Like the profiles!

[bowsandroses]

Thanks Simon so far she's still shooting and the top limb is still there unbraced holding about 1/2" of reflex. She may just make it.