130lb elm bow

[WillS]

This was the third stave that I got from Stuart in return for some English yew.  The first two made almost identical 80lb bows and were quickly snapped up, but Stuart also gave me a really nice chunky stave which I wanted to push as hard as I could to make a bow for myself.  I was sort of hoping for 140lb but wasn't particularly worried, as I hadn't ever tried this wood before and was just curious what it was capable of.

I kept it full thickness and full width, set up the tapers and got the bow finished with the cow horn sidenocks glued on, and then braced it to about 5".  It looked awful, so I used my heat treating method to "tiller" the bow (without losing any weight by removing wood) until the brace shape looked better. 

It was taken to 25" and I had a feeling it was lighter than it should be at that draw length.  I piked it by about 2.5" to take the overall length to 74", and took it down to my draw length of 30.5", where the scales read 132lb.  The bow took perhaps 1" of string follow.

I'm really quite pleased with this, as I know wych elm is perfectly capable of these weights but I've never been that keen on the idea of using English elm, so when I get my hands on some more I'll try and tip the 150lb mark.

Please excuse the incredibly poor full draw photo quality, it was taken as a video and is the best I could do!

Huge thanks to Stuart for this lovely timber and the opportunity to work with it.

[Badger]

  Beautiful bow, beautiful job you did. I wish we had a self bow class for war bows in flight shooting using an arrow of at least about 700 grains.

[WillS]

Thank you very much!

That does seem a shame - what's preventing the addition of such a class?

[meanewood]

Great bow Will

Just goes to show that the 'meanewoods' make good, robust, and high poundage bows.
Time to get yourself in the 'Warbow Wales' record book for longest distance using English Elm.

Wouldn't it be cool to have a working bow from all the 'Meanewoods' available to the bowyers back in the day!

Stuart

[wizardgoat]

Nice work Will, looks and sounds like some great timber

[penderbender]

Nice looking bend will. Nice looking wood too. Cheers- Brendan

[Ruddy Darter]

Very nice work WillS, lovely looking bow  .

 R.D.

[selfbow joe]

Nice work. Good looking bow

[medicinewheel]

Wow, nice!!!
Would love to read some measurements of thisone!

[WillS]

No probs - it's 74" nock to nock, 40mm wide and 29mm deep in the handle, with 11mm X 11mm tips.  The belly and back are rounded to match each other.

[willie]

Nice work, Will. Shows what a the right wood can do in the hands of a craftsman. Could you tell us a bit about your process of heat treatment or " method to "tiller" the bow "?  Do you treat deferentially?

[WillS]

It's simply a case of bracing the bow, spotting where it's weak and hitting that area with a heat gun.  Long and slow, really gentle and no scorching.  You almost don't want any colour at all, but when the back feels hot you're good to go.

With this one, there was an awkward deflex area, followed by a slight weak spot from my initial tapering which was throwing me off at brace height, so I heated that area to stiffen it all up and the brace shape looked fine afterwards. 

What's nice about this method is a) you obviously don't lose any weight by chasing the rest of the bow down to balance a weak spot, and b) you can go over the areas as many times as you want to heat treat other areas.  Often I'll never touch the bow with a scraper or rasp and just stiffen the weak spots with heat until the bow is tillered.

[willie]

Thanks for sharing that procedure. Will. I think there is a lot to be said for knowing what the bow should look like at brace.

[WillS]

I can't take any credit for that, I just copy and learn from the bowyers I admire most!

[JNystrom]

Very well done, especially that 1" set. Your method of tillering with heat is interesting! I have done it myself while heat treating by reflexing those weak spots more. But i feel like it doesnt have that great effect.
Just to make sure, do you pull the weakspot on reflex also, while heating it? That obviously works nicely if done right, but doesnt allow you to heat treat the bow fully in the end? Right? Cause that would throw the tiller off again. But if you end up with 1" set at 130lbs, do you need heat treating....  Great job again!

In your another thread, i understood that you heat treated the wood and then continued to bend the bow/stave during the same day. If that is correct, i need to try that too. Well anyway i should try it, now that it got me thinking!

I happen to have couple of  78" wych elm, ash and apple staves so, i should really start working with them. Heavy longbows are totally new thing for me, since i have only made short bows. Its allways nice to see WillS posted a new topic about warbows, cause i know its full of good info and interesting stuff! Keep on going!