learning on a juniper stave

[mikebarg]

I have had a piece of juniper sitting in my garage for a long time. It is crooked and twisted and riddled with knots. I don't think it has a hole lot of potential as a bow. I have seen some of you guys do awesome things with some really bent and snaky staves. I've also seen some amazing bows with knots in them. But, I'm certainly not at that skill level(yet). But ,I figured I could learn a lot from such a challenged piece of wood even if the result is not a usable bow. I've snapped a few pics of what I have, Juniper is most definitely a beautiful wood. One issue I have is scraping the belly. I keep getting snagged up on the knots. I was thinking maybe sand it instead???

[loon]

Looks really nice! Good luck with it...

[wizardgoat]

On stubborn hard belly knots I use a fine rasp or heavy grit sand paper.
Juniper is good stuff

[Chief RID]

Oh my goodness! You got it to brace. Very good. If you did not take off the sap wood on the back, I think you are about finished. If you draw to weight and you are close to your draw length, just round everything off by smoothing everything out. Since you did not go with a flat belly, I think that is your best bet. It looks great if you can get it to tiller.

[mikebarg]

I shot a few arrows with it this morning . I decided to check the draw weight. But i guess I went too far. I pulled it to 24" and 37# and bam, it broke .

[wizardgoat]

In the photo the limbs look very thin outside of the handle. Is that where it broke?
Focus on a nice thickness taper,  with no thick or thin spots as you go from handle to tips
Better luck on the next one! Juniper is known to be best backed with sinew, or even rawhide.

[upstatenybowyer]

WG is right, it did look thin near the handle. Read pages 66 and 67 of The Traditional Bowyer's Bible vol. 1. You'll find a good explanation of where to leave wood and where to remove it. Nice try though! I've broken way more bows than I've succeeded with. Every broken bow contains a valuable lesson. 

[mikebarg]

It was thin. I wanted it to be light.  It wasn't very straight and I wasn't too sure about how the tiller should look. I definately learned from it.

[Jack Napier]

Juniper from branches and small trees is no good, full of knots, internal damage, windy and wobbly grained, too dry. You need to get wood from a massive trunk of a very old living tree, to do anything good with it. It looks like you made a good bow, but were simply forced to work with suboptimal wood.

[Josh B]

Juniper from branches and small trees is no good, full of knots, internal damage, windy and wobbly grained, too dry. You need to get wood from a massive trunk of a very old living tree, to do anything good with it. It looks like you made a good bow, but were simply forced to work with suboptimal wood.

I'm curious...is this observation gleaned from personal experience, something you read or just theory?  My experience has been almost completely the opposite as what you have stated.
As far as this bow goes, leaving the bark on juniper isn't a good idea.  Juniper bark is just stringy and tough enough to take some of the tension load up to a point.  Then the bark gives way and suddenly  loads the wood with tension where the bark broke causing failure.  That may or may not have caused this failure, but it's something to consider on the next one.   Josh

[wizardgoat]

I agree with Josh, I missed it in the pics at first. There's not many woods that can handle keeping bark on.  I've always found juniper branch wood to be excellent bow wood, I've made 3, all backed with sinew. I'm sure trunk wood is good too

[Jack Napier]

Juniper from branches and small trees is no good, full of knots, internal damage, windy and wobbly grained, too dry. You need to get wood from a massive trunk of a very old living tree, to do anything good with it. It looks like you made a good bow, but were simply forced to work with suboptimal wood.

I'm curious...is this observation gleaned from personal experience, something you read or just theory?  My experience has been almost completely the opposite as what you have stated.
As far as this bow goes, leaving the bark on juniper isn't a good idea.  Juniper bark is just stringy and tough enough to take some of the tension load up to a point.  Then the bark gives way and suddenly  loads the wood with tension where the bark broke causing failure.  That may or may not have caused this failure, but it's something to consider on the next one.   Josh

http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4v5249w9.pdf

Consistent attention
was given to length, width, thickness, ab-
sence of damaging knots, straightness of
grain, lack of twist in the grain, perhaps a
combination of both heartwood and sap-
wood,^ and growth-rings typical of flatsawn
lumber where the outer ring or rings formed
a gentle arc extending aeross the back of
the bow from one side or edge to the other.
Diseovery of thèse trees came about when
searching for timber to be used in replicat-
ing the short sinew-backed Juniper bow of
the Great Basin. Frederick Covule (1892:
360) described the use of dead, seasoned
Juniper wood for the manufacture of bows by
the Panamint Shoshoni:

The bows are made from the désert Juni-
per, Juniperus califomica utahensis [= /.
osteosperma]. The Indian prefers a pièce
of wood from the trunk or a large limb of
a tree that bas died and seasoned while
standing.

In all cases wHere such wood was examined
in the field, it proved to be weather-checked
and cracked, and unsuitable for bow manu-
facture. George Frison kindly pointed out
that the wood was cut from living timber,
and described stave-removal scars he had
seen on Juniper trees in Wyoming. That des-
cription led to the diseovery of the trees
reported hère.

Interesting informa-
tion on the manufacture of wooden bows
among the Paviotso (Northern Paiute),
although brief, was recorded by Edward S.
Curtis (1926,XV:61):

The bow was about three feet long, re-
curved at the ends, and made of a pièce
of cedar taken from the trunk, not from a
branch. The better ones were strength-
ened with a reinforcement of sinew glued
to the back.

Thèse comments are useful for understanding
bow bow staves were extracted from Juniper
trees, as we shall see below.

NEW INFORMATION ON
SOURCES AND EXTRACTION
OF WOODEN BOW STAVES

Récent field investigations in western
Nevada provided information on the abor-
iginal exploitation of Utah Juniper (Juniperus
osteosperma) trees for bow staves.

[Jack Napier]

I do have to say that in my experience, the only way to get a knotless, straight-grained, non-checked, straight-as-a-board piece of Juniper is to extract it from a huge old, smooth tree trunk. They're as rare as diamonds but always produce a perfect stave. And it saves the trees life! Those Indians were ingenious. Juniper from big trees and juniper from saplings and branches are almost like two entirely different types of wood.

[Josh B]

I had a feeling that you were referencing at least one of those articles, if not several of them.  I agree that they were indeed ingenious in there manner of procuring staves.  I have looked for such trees many times in my travels, but have yet to find one.  I've also thought about trying that technique myself, but never seem to get around to it.  A couple points should be taken into account on the trunk wood vs limb wood question.  The articles you referenced are written about regions and peoples that primarily made short sinew backed bows.  Trunk wood has a tendency to be considerably more brash in tension than is the top of limbs.  With a sinew backing that brashness is not an issue, so it makes sense to acquire easier to work straight knot free staves.  If your looking to make an unbacked selfbow as the OP was, then the top of the limbs are the better choice.  Even with the knots.  I won't say that juniper trunk wood self bows have not or can not be made.  Only that your chances of success are higher with the top side of limbs.  It should also be noted the limbs tend to be far denser wood than the trunk.  Like yew, juniper quality has a certain correlation to it's density.  It's not the only consideration, but it does count for something.  You can find good limbs if you know where to look and they are worth the extra trouble to find and harvest.  Josh