Need some help with possible BOM entry. ELB

[Fred Arnold]

  OK, this has been curing for two+ years, maybe 3+ come to think of it, and it's black walnut. It's got the length, width, and depth, but I'm not sure it has the properties for what I have in mind. If it does and I can get the help it would surely make a fantastic Looking bow. I have no clue about performance.

I will get a picture up here shortly. It was taken down to 2 growth rings of sapwood shortly after harvest and has been in my shop since.

From past experience I know that the sapwood would do it's job, I'm just not so sure about the beautiful heartwood.

[Badger]

  One of the most beautiful bows I have ever seen was a black walnut with sapwood back and heartwood belly. The bow I saw was maybe 2 1//2" wide, 60" long with a stiff narrowed handle section, he was only drawing it about 21". The limb design was closer to pyramid in shape than anything else.
 Black walnut is light but can make a real nice shooting bow, I would go about 66" if I could, not more than 50# and if you are comfortable with a 26" draw maybe stop there. I made a 62" elb several years ago that took quite a bit of set and was nothing to write home about. Good luck. I think these guys here have made several nice examples they may be able to show you.

[Fred Arnold]

Badger, probably the best performing bow I've made to date is a 62", 50@28, 1 5/8 and tapered the last 10" to 1/2" was an all sapwood BW that took virtually no set. The only heartwood shown was in the slightly narrowed handle which actually gave at full draw.

I love the wood. I should probably quit playing with my osage and do a little more experimenting with it.

<a href="http://s190.photobucket.com/user/Bowferd/media/DSC00661_zps810dab34.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i190.photobucket.com/albums/z314/Bowferd/DSC00661_zps810dab34.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo DSC00661_zps810dab34.jpg"/></a>

[Fred Arnold]

That was gross. Here is the original bow.

[Josh B]

Fred if your shooting for 28" draw, I would go for a 69" ntn bow.  Don't get to carried away on rounding the belly.  You'll want your tiller to be just a bit elliptical to get the best out of it.  Josh

[Fred Arnold]

Gun Doc, so am I still looking for a  long narrow tapered design with a slightly flatter belly?

[Josh B]

Yep.  I would start with about 1 1/4" wide in the center section and taper down to the tips.  For an elb the belly is supposed to be rounded, but walnut doesn't tolerate to much rounding before it chrysals.  Basically what I do is tiller the belly flat until a few inches before full draw and the start lightly rounding the corners on the belly and introduce a slight convexity to the belly to get those last few inches.  I shoot for what Del describes as an inflated square cross section.  Josh

[Pat B]

The ones I made(years back) were slightly overbuilt flat bows with flat bellies. I made a few ELB styles but they all fretted badly.

[Onebowonder]

I'm glad to hear Black Walnut well spoken of as a bow wood.  I've made 6 attempts with the stuff and only one is a shooter, ...and it has taken mountains of set.  I'd really like to get Black Walnut to work out for me, but it continues to be my kryptonite among bow woods.  We have gobs of it growing around here.  The stuff is so pretty, and works well with my tools, but it just does not hold up for me.  ...and I am sure it is me, because I have seen very nice BW bows that others have built with few or no issues.

OneBow