*Completed* Balau Holmegaard-ish selfbow + wood review

[MattZA]

Here's the finished product that we were speaking about a few days ago.

Unbacked Balau. Holmegaard based front view and tiller. 68" ntn. 48# at 28". Bulletwood nocks and handle inlay. Shoots like a demon. Just unbraced set of 5/8", dropping down to 3/8".

Impressions of Balau: It's a dense, heavy wood (0.84SG). Seems quite stable. Reasonably soft, despite its density. I needed to use the bulletwood on the tips to prevent the string cutting into them. Unfortunately I must have missed a tiny tillering error and it chrystaled a bit on the belly. Otherwise, the wood is beautiful with a quick sanding and two coats of teak oil only. It works about as well as you'd expect considering its density.

[MattZA]

 More pics...

[Pat B]

I imagine the frets are 8" above or 8" below the handle where most of the bending takes place. You should have even bending through the wide portions of the limbs from the fades out to the levers and if I'm not mistaken the levers starting to bend slightly at full draw.

[MattZA]

Yup, correct on both counts, sir! The levers are starting to bend slightly at full draw. That was a miscalculation on my part, sadly. They don't move very much though.

As you say, it should be bending more throughout the working limb. I think I got a bit too stuck on them needing to bend immediately out of the fades. The cracks appeared after 500-750 shots.

Overall I'm still quite happy with it, though. I've never attempted a full sized unbacked bow before. Nor have I attempted a holmegaard based shape before. In fact it's only bow attempt number 6 overall.

Being the absolute wizard that you are, Pat, do you think it's possible to fix the chrysal issue without losing all the poundage through re-tillering?

[Pat B]

The only repair I know of for frets is to grind down the belly and add a belly lam. Sometimes you can thin the wood on either side of the frets taking the strain off of them and they won't get worse but the bow is only as strong as the worse hinge.
 When working on the working portion of a limb save the fade area for last and bring the bend back towards the fades from the bending portion of the limbs. The fade area gets the most stress because of the leverage of the limbs.

[SLIMBOB]

Tougher to get the bend right on these lever bows.  I agree with Pat all the way.  Needs to bend more right out of the handle fades and up to the shoulders on the lever fades.  Nice work on it none the less.