Hi, first post. I'm from Darwin Australia and about 8 months ago started to develop a serious interest in making selfbows. I bought a copy of the TBB series, and have been having a crack at making board bows for the last few months.
The first few were with wood from the local hardware store, which was pretty terrible. Darwin is a somewhat remote city with very poor choice and variety for woods, so my only choice was Durian. Turns out, its terrible for bowmaking and i broke 3 during tillering. Made one kids bow that works well but its a 20" draw and light poundage.
Did the standard wood bending test from the book on the wood and the best numbers came out as 16.6lb - 3" - 1/4" - 3.5
But, I learned a lot from it and moved on.
Next, I found a timber merchant who sold a bit more variety and found an ok Jarrah board. Grain was running on a 60 deg angle from the back, but they had so little choice I took it. Tested it and it came out as 18.1lb - 3" - 1/4" - 3.5. Not great, but having bought it I gave it a crack anyway and made a 70" long flat bow that was 2.5" wide, and drew 45lb at 30" (I have long arms) To my surprise it shot fairly well, and lasted about 200 arrows before starting to lift small splinters on one side of both limbs along the back. It hasn't broken, but I have retired it for now. It was a very pretty bow, again, I learned a lot from it.
I was hooked after this one! Feeling the bow that you made come to life in your hands for a second, sending an arrow you made flying towards a target, hard to explain but I felt like it scratched an itch in my soul I didn't know I had. Bit dramatic perhaps, but anyway, I really liked it. That bow got a LOT of attention from all the compound shooters at the archery club too, think there might be a few potential bowyers there
So I went back to the timber merchant, and had a look at their spotted gum. They had one warped piece that had a good grain, and was long enough to cut a straight bit from. Got it home, cut a 1/2" x 18" test piece, set that outside in the high humidity here for 3 days then tested it. It was terrible. It came back pulling 20.5lb at 1.5", and snapped at 2" without taking a set. I don't know if that is just what spotted gum is like, or if that board had been baking in the Darwin heat for years and was ruined. Either way, I didn't waste my time trying to make a bow from it. It was upsetting though.
After that, I decided my intro into bow making by using boards was over, and it was time to get serious. It was time to cut my own wood. But what tree to get? There's very little information around on what Australian woods make decent bows. In America and Europe, there is a long history of what local tribes used in times gone by, but here the bow was never invented. A few people know some good woods, but there's very little data on the internet. People say 'some eucalypts', but there is 700 types of Eucalypts that grow here. Besides, most of the people who have built successful Eucalyptus bows don't live in the tropics and probably haven't done so using tropical grown woods. So, I just decided to have a crack at it, borrowed a chainsaw and went tree hunting. I figure if I fail but still learn something, I'll be better off than when I started.
So I found this tree, I *think* its some variety of bloodwood. Which is technically considered a type of Eucalyptus. Looked straight with no twists.
Chopped it down and split the log. Took it home and put a bit upstairs in the aircon away from the humidity to dry. The one at the back is the log in question.
Realised I messed up, and did not cut a shorter log for test strips
had to sacrifice a quarter log to make test bits out of. Cut some up on a bandsaw and let them dry for a few days.
Did a test on them, and they came up pretty good. I think the test bit was fractionally more damp than it should have been though. Tested at 28.3lb - 4" - 1/4" - 4.5". That said, at 4.5" it didn't *really* break, it just lifted a splinter from a sharp corner. The wood was still intact otherwise.
Based on that, I have roughed out a stave to just over 1 3/4 inches and 70" long (length to account for longer draw). The stave is still green, as I cut it down only a week ago. Its drying in the heat of the car at the moment.
Sapwood being shaved off
Stave hacked to width with a hatchet
]
Edges cleaned up with a plane
belly roughed out close to size
That's where it's at the moment. Too wet to work much further and may warp if I do. Once its dry I'll do the tips and try to correct a slight twist, probably in a week or two. Like I said, I'm still very new to bow making and have probably made a heap of mistakes, and this may not even make a successful bow. But if it doesn't, I've learned a lot and enjoyed myself
Very interested in hearing peoples thoughts and/or advice!
