Long time lurker, first time poster. All of the work and information sharing I see on here is absolutely amazing and inspiring! I've been waiting to do this for years and finally have the space/time/tools to put some effort into it. My wife and I bought a house on 4.25 acres a couple years ago that has a nice little Black Locust grove on the property. I cut down one of the larger/straighter saplings about a month ago and got a few staves out of a couple sections of the tree. The Locust has big fat rings that I mostly plan on using for practicing ring chasing and tillering, and I'll hopefully start to collect some nicer staves from some larger trees and friends in the area (SW Wisconsin). So, hopefully in a couple of years when I have some practice under my belt, I'll have some nice seasoned wood to choose from.
I took the bark off those first staves with a hatchet and let them dry for a couple weeks while I put together my shave-horse. I'm pretty proud of how it turned out. I still plan on making an adjustable seat that can slide back and forth, but for now I'm just sitting on a cushion and its actually working out really well. I've spent quite a few hours on it already. I also found an awesome (seemingly-unused) forged, adjustable, Pexto draw-knife that even the antique shop owner was like "huh, that looks brand new", and I got it for a steal, so that's been my workhorse.
So far I've roughed out an American flat bow style, asymmetrical, 68" ttt, 2" width at the fades continuing half-way up the limbs and then decreasing to 5/8" (based on one of Weylins build-alongs). I left the sapwood on this one, I've read through most of whats on here about leaving sapwood on BL, and plan to try one with and one without. I really like the way it looks with the contrasting heart/sap-wood, and with the size of the rings, and small diameter of the tree, it's definitely easier to leave on, so I'm interested to see differences. The stave has a little S curve in it, not totally a propeller, but it looks like the string might pass through the center just fine anyways if it doesn't change much during curing. I have yet to attempt heat corrections, I don't have a heat gun yet or a set up for steaming, but I think that will be the next thing I try out.
I also roughed out a Pyramid style, symmetrical, 56" ttt, 2" width down to what are going to be self-knocks and a pointed tip. I took the sapwood off of this one. One limb has some nice natural reflex that I plan to match on the other side, and one of the tips swings off to the right a little that I plan on heat correcting. I kind of imagine this one having a thin, slightly-bulbous, but slightly-bendy handle that fades into the center of the limbs if that makes any sense.
Anyways, part of me is just showing off what I have accomplished in a short time. I always seem to pick hobbies that take years to work up to, so right now I have to hold back from just blasting through too much greenwood too fast. But I would also love any feedback about the layouts I have so far, any suggestions, really anything! You guys are so inspiring! Looking forward to being apart of this community!
-Louis
