Bow making contest ( drawlength changed. Make it to your own draw length )

[Emmet]

Plan b, That cotton wood is calling to you to try again.

I think I would like to back mine for added protection. I have nettles at my house and thought of trying to use them for something before but there just now coming up and since it was already suggested I think I'll try something else. Would pizza box or junk mail Qualify or is it to far from natural.

[PlanB]

Sounds good to me!

Nettles sting.....


Wait a minute......were you thinking plain or pepperoni?

[Emmet]

I dug through the recycle and picked pizza, chicken nuggets and hot pocket boxes. Thought it may be tough enough to do some good and It'll look like a race car.

[PlanB]

Oh, man.....with skins like that, this is shaping up to be a vicious competition...... 

Chicken nuggets....plywood edge grain......what can I do? What to do...... Well, Emmet, I think you're right.  I gotta just dust myself off, get back up on that cottonwood horse and try to ride it again.

There's a healthy medium size tree up the hill a ways just waitin' for a light breeze to knock the limbs off and uproot. it. 

I guess it says "bow" all over it, to the right kinda guy.

I better sharpen the Poulan.....

[PlanB]

Got it. Tree was about 14" dia, and I split off a 1/4 chunk 80" long using some gluts for wedges (foreground) made from dried birch saplings, that I sharpened and toasted to meke them harder. Dragged the chunk back near the house with the tractor. Mmmmmmm, cottonwood......

[willie]

Plan B

the photo of the skidder dragging a stave makes me think that the rest of the tree is still on the stump. Did you remove the stave from the tree, while it was standing,  with the saw and gluts?

some cottonwood I cut earlier  this winter is starting to look like good (easy) arrow making wood

[PlanB]

Nope Willie, I dropped the whole tree. It fell right on top of an old abandoned pine log pile left by a logging company before my time here. Popped an 8 foot long 20 inch dia pine log up into the air when it did it, too. I don't particularly like cottonwood, since it tends to crowd out the better hardwoods here. So I just cut off a stave length section, split it where it was into quarters, and wrestled that down the pile to the tractor. I don't know if I'll go back and bring the rest of the tree to the mill. Maybe.

Anyway, today I split that quarter down further, and then scraped the bark off, which I figured would be a bear this time of year up here (not really spring yet). But it came off easier than I thought. Here it is scraped mostly clean of inner bark and the ends waxed.

[PlanB]

After splitting the stuff down yesterday, it seemed pretty straight. After removing the bark I thought I saw a little twist developing. After sitting outside in the shed last night I'm seeing some real propeller twist. I'm wondering if it's going to be possible to make a bow out of this tree's wood. If it gets too bad, it's going in the wood stove. I suppose I could try another sapling, just to try to stick to it. But three strikes and yer out.

[Josh B]

Plan b cottonwood is notorious for warping and twisting as it dries.  It also has a tendency to check pretty bad when speed dried.  I haven't tried it for bows, but I have used it for other projects.  If you seal the back and ends and clamp the roughed out stave to a good straight2x4 or bench, you might have better luck getting a workable stave.  No guarantee that it'll make a bow of course, but then that's the fun of the challenge in the first place is it not?  Josh

[PlanB]

It is Josh!  Well, I decided to jump the gun and roughed out stock for another cottonwood sapling bow attempt whether or not the stave works out. The stave is too big to lash down- it's going to do what it wants -- I'll try to work with that, since there's room to move things around on it.

Loved the catalpa bow!

Cottonwood: about 5 years ago I sawed up a huge cottonwood log thinking I'd have a lifetime supply of clear wood for molding. Boy did that stuff split and twist! I ended up using some of it for patching barn planking, but a lot of it was just wasted.

I've got some other oddball stuff if this doesn't work out -- dry basswood (big leaf linden) 4x4 over 6 feet tall which could probably make a bow  right away.

And I also have some striped maple saplings on the stump. That stuff seems to grow perfectly round and branchless for a good ways -- I don't think it's particularly strong -- so it might be a good challenge here.

I have one dry (I think) stave of witch hazel with a check down one side.  Kind of twisty. But if the check is not a problem, I think it might make a good bow.

But I'll keep going with the cottonwood.

[willie]

The "plywood" bow got some tillering recently, it is made from a tji, with all the plies going the same way. I waited for patch on the back to cure, but It was sort of hopeless from the get go. The doug fir raised small splinters on the back at brace height. and the splinters  looked more like soft flakes. Maybe damage from when the logs were peeled? At 25# @ 12" there was a lot of snap crackle pop. The " stave" was stiff and springy, maybe too dry?  It blew at about 35@20"

[sleek]

Its amazing you got that far! I bet you could make it all the way if you had a wider piece of ply and longer too. Are you going to try again?

[willie]

No, I do not think that I will, Sleek. There is something punky about the wood it's self. I think it gets damaged or softened when they peel the logs . Gonna try to make my own plywood.

I got to looking at a 2 x 4 of doug fir or larch. Looks like better wood than the Tji flange had

Hmmmm. maybe I can make some Plywood out of  a rippings from this Home Depot stud..........and some kind of hardwood for the back...........

Here's a piece of willow from the firewood pile, a little short, but should be ok,  for plywood, that is

which end of the stud would you use?

(BTW, its my opinion that there is something flawed with just about everything you find at those big box supply stores. If you know what the flaw is, the other half just might be  OK.)

[sapling bowyer]

Great posts guys! BTW the sapwood locust I'm working on is coming good. At floor tiller now and it'l be ready for brace after some minor corrections using steam. Some  black locust saplings we have here have smooth bark and some have rough. I discovered that the rough barked ones have much denser wood than the smooth barked ones. The one I am working on had smooth bark. Bad luck.
Also if it makes it without being shattered, It will be damn fast cuz it's light as feather

[Emmet]

Willie, That stud looks like a good choice in the first pic. The second look mostly sap wood.
Fir That I've worked with, when wet has a lot of bend but snap easy when dry.

 I've been thinking on a way to add a certain level of moister that would keep my project from being too dry to bend.
I'm thinking on warming the back then soaking in a thin oil type finish to try and keep the back intact.
I don't know if anyone has had any luck doing that type of thing or not.