Plan for Cherokee war bow (kinda/sorta)

[upstatenybowyer]

Anyone ever read the chapter on Eastern Woodland Bows in TBB 2? Well, in there Herrin describes 2 types of well-preserved Cherokee bows, the longer of which he calls the "war" bow. He gives the dimensions as...

71" ntn
width at handle: 1 9/16" tapering down to...
width at tips: 1 1/16"
thickness at handle: 5/8" tapering down to...
thickness at tips: 7/16"
65# at 28"

The preferred wood was Osage, and I once built one from it with the exact same dimensions. I'd post pics but I gave it to my sister-in-law's husband who now hunts with it regularly.

Anyway, seeing as though a recent windstorm gave me more sugar maple than I know what to do with, I thought it might be fun to give this bow another go with one exception other than the wood... I'd like to go narrower at the tips say, 3/8". My question is, if I'd like to keep the same draw weight (close to 65#) how would you folks adjust the thickness to account for the different type of wood and narrower tips? I have some ideas, but I thought I'd ask. 

[BowEd]

I've always gone with the last 6" does'nt work anyway.Narrow to your hearts content I say.

[Stick Bender]

I made a similar bow to what your doing but shorter and lighter in osage , maple is a great wood if I were going to make that. Bow just guessing I would go for 1 5/8 w  7/8 thick & side tiller it down after it was bending right , cant wait to see that one , maybe tomorrow hey ? 

[upstatenybowyer]

SB it's done.  lol. Just kidding.

Bead, gotcha. The main reason I was asking was because since the maple's nice and straight, I was just going to draw a straight line taper from handle to tip and I figured that would reduce the width from the original design along all of the working limb. So I figured to compensate I would go thicker. I was thinking of starting at 13/16" thick at the handle tapering to 7/16", 6" from the tip, then leaving it at that thickness to the tip. Does that make any sense? 

[bradsmith2010]

I think Wider in the working limb,, is better than thicker,, with the narrow tips,, but both should work fine,,

[BowEd]

With osage there's a saying...thicker is quicker but for other woods wider is better in the working section part.

[upstatenybowyer]

Thanks Brad and Ed. Never heard that saying before. Good one to know. I'll keep the design as written but just narrow the tips. 

[Springbuck]

 I say all the same dimensions, but leave it full width out to within 12" of each tip and move some of the bend out to mid-limb and just beyond.

[earthartsnw]

One thing to note is that many Cherokee preferred black locust to Osage for bows even when it was available. Hickory was a very commonly used wood as well before the Cherokees removal to Oklahoma on the trail of tears. I'm half Cherokee myself and my dads family are all full bloods from Tahlequah OK. Interestingly enough my white Grandfather grew up with some of the old Cherokee bowyers. He used to call Osage "Bois 'D Arc" or bowdark and said that he was told it made great short bows but for the traditional Cherokee longbow in the #70 range- Black Locust was preferred. I'm sure preference was driven partially by availability but I think another reason is that long straight staves of Locust are easier to find and to work. Also most traditional Cherokee bows have a decrowned back and locust seems to tolerate this pretty well, at least the ones that I've made haven't had any tension issues with a decrowned back. On the other hand I've never tried it with Osage, but it seems that most people are obsessed with chasing a ring :-)

Ostu iga
Charlie

[upstatenybowyer]

Not a bad idea Springbuck. I'll give that some thought.   
earthartsnw, wow man, thanks so much for chiming in. I love this website cause you never know what kind of responses you'll get! The info I posted above I got directly from TBB 2 from 1 page in particular. Herrin does mention BL and Hickory among many others. I don't think I remember him mentioning that the bows were decrowned, but I could certainly be wrong on that. Either way it's great to get this kind of primary source information, so once again I thank you kindly for your response. Can't wait to hear more from you in the future. 

[bradsmith2010]

the black locust I worked sith seemed a bit lighter in mass, and that would since that it was preferred for the longer bow,,

[earthartsnw]

Not a bad idea Springbuck. I'll give that some thought.   
earthartsnw, wow man, thanks so much for chiming in. I love this website cause you never know what kind of responses you'll get! The info I posted above I got directly from TBB 2 from 1 page in particular. Herrin does mention BL and Hickory among many others. I don't think I remember him mentioning that the bows were decrowned, but I could certainly be wrong on that. Either way it's great to get this kind of primary source information, so once again I thank you kindly for your response. Can't wait to hear more from you in the future. 

Thanks! I know what you mean I learn something new and different every time I'm here! I've only seen a handful of the original style bows but they were all just about perfectly rectangular in cross section. Of course they could have come from larger trees but I also recall that sometimes the Cherokee would actually make the back from the inside of the stave (backwards). I've actually done it that way with other woods as an experiment, but I've yet to try it with Locust. I will say that per weight Locust really has a lot of spring and as long as you keep the limbs oriented straight with the grain you don't have to worry about violating rings.

[upstatenybowyer]

It's funny you mention that the Cherokee would make the back of the bow from the inside of the tree. Ancient Europeans did the same thing. Crazy how two totally different cultures that developed completely independent from each other do the same thing. Lots of examples of this kind of thing... mandalas by both the Navajo and Tibetan monks comes to mind...