Hello everyone,
Here is my latest creation, a hickory backed red cedar longbow with a mild r/d profile. 66.5 NTN, 41@28, symmetrical design, 1-5/16 wide at the fades with a 12 taper to Ό tips
I have been wanting to build a backed red cedar bow after seeing first hand several that had been built by Marc St louis. They were very light in the hand and an absolute joy to shoot.
I could not find a cedar board with a long enough section of straight grain, so I ripped a 36 board in half and used a tapered finger splice to connect the two pieces together. The splice location allowed for a beautiful mix of heartwood/sapwood through the handle and top limb. I then added the 1/8 thick hickory backing and glued in ½ of reflex and ½ of deflex. The handle section was then glued on with a mix of white oak, jatoba, and hickory strips.
I glued up this blank back in January, but decided not to continue because I was fearful that the 35% humidity was too low for red cedar. Hearing stories of them exploding at full draw did not help my confidence
.
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I saw the stave sitting on the rack and decided it was time to finish it
Cedar is wonderfully easy to work and the smell is delightful. I did find that it is very touchy to adjustments in tiller. This bow was a bit difficult to tiller. It required re-tillering twice while shooting it in because the limbs started to fret at the fades from being too narrow/stressed. I reduced the overall draw weight and got the mid limbs working more to combat the fretting. I believe I have it fixed now but only time will tell.
I usually tiller all my 3 under bows to have an even tiller. On this bow I ended up with a 1/4 weaker top limb which showed the best full draw profile. Both limbs hold just under 1 of string follow with an additional Ό of set directly after shooting.
The bow was finished with 3 coats of Shellac and 3 coated of water based spar. I then used some 0000-steel wool to cut down the shine. A glued on brown leather grip and shelf rest with beaver tail side plate finished the bow.
The bow shoots 10 gpp arrows at 163 fps with a 27.5 draw. It is lightweight and snappy and is a pleasure to shoot. The bow turned out exactly how I had hoped it would except for the minor tillering issues.
I really like the backed cedar bow design. It makes for such a lightweight and sweet shooting longbow. I will make my next cedar bow 1-1/2 wide at the fades and taper the belly before glue up. These should result in a bow with less set and better performance.
Enjoy SS
[url=https://flic.kr/p/MiktL9]
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