Maple bow

[Black Moshannon]

About two years ago I made a D bow from a rock maple board. It was 70 inches long and was supposed to draw fifty pounds. It was a poor performer, having about 2.5 to 3 inches of string follow, and I'm pretty sure draw weight fell under fifty pounds. I was for pitching it, but it was the bow that me and my wife shot on one of our first dates, so she wanted me to keep it. So a couple weeks ago, I decided to revamp it. I cut it down to 67.5 inches. I tapered the tips to 1/2 inch. The bow is 11/4 inch wide at its widest point. I reverse braced it and heat treated it for an hour over an old charcoal grill. This is only the second bow I have heat treated so I'm no expert. But going off the info from TBB vol 4, I held it about a foot from the coals, got it to a medium brown color (some blackened spots too) and let it re-hydrate for about a week, which seemed reasonable. Now upon re-tillering, most of the dark toast got scraped off, as I did not want to make in any narrower. The bow at this point had about an inch of reflex. I had to take what seemed like a lot off to get it back to fifty pounds at 27 inches. I then sanded it and applied tung oil, and made a linen string for it.

The bow now draws just over fifty pounds at 27 inches, has 3/8 inch of string follow, which goes to about 3/4 after some shooting time. It's smooth and fast and I love shooting it. The maple is also beautiful. And it did win me a wonderful woman, at least I'm pretty sure that bow was the reason she fell for me.

[Hamish]

Nice bow, great story. Worked out well for you, good choice all around.

[Black Moshannon]

Here's a better photo to show the lower limb at full draw.

[willie]

Nice even tiller. If you don't mind me asking. how much did you reverse brace when you did the heat treat?

[Black Moshannon]

Thanks. It was probably a dangerous amount, since there was already probably 2.5 inches of deflex to deal with. It might've been about an inch or inch and a half past straight. My next bow, an elm D bow, I'm going to do the reverse brace and heat treat when I have it tillered to about 24 inches, then continue on tillering.

[backtowood B2W]

Nice tiller and come back. Maple likes a heat treat imo. Nevertheless it doesn't look like amors bow, it worked out for you .
Cheers B2W

[BowEd]

Nice looking tiller.I don't do much maple.Good plan about your elm.
PS....Did you get an estimate on how much draw weight gain you gained from heat treating?

[dylanholderman]

 Good story and great D bow, my first successful bows were made from maple staves 

[Black Moshannon]

Thanks, I don't know how to figure out how much weight it would have gained, other than to say, it was hitting fifty pounds at so many inches. I should have paid more attention, I believe it was twenty inches. The original fifty pounds was at twenty-seven. Is that how one could estimate the weight gain?

[BowEd]

The way I estimate that is the amount of poundage you get from your power stroke.Say your at a 6" brace height to back of handle.If drawing to 28" to me that's a 22" power stroke.Now say you get 50#'s @ 28".That's 2.27 pounds per inch of your power stroke.Granted power strokes of different profiles can be different at different stages of your power stroke.Higher reflexed bows can have more early poundage gain but still will end up being the same final full draw poundage.
I would go measuring in your case from 23" draw length to 27" to see amount of draw weight gain that is.I don't know your brace height though so I would measure towards the end of the power stroke to get a better estimate would be more accurate.
In your case figuring starting with a 6" brace height to back.That's a 21" power stroke.That's 2.38#'s per inch.
If you got 50#'s at 20" that's 16.5#'s of draw weight gain from heat treating and piking together.Making your bow shorter would make weight gain per inch go up to to raise that poundage.Probably another 5#'s for sure.One inch per limb off gives you an extra 5#'s.So you may have gained a little over 10#'s from heat treating.Quite a lot really.
Just something good to know before your next project.

[PaSteve]

Bow looks really nice. Good job on the tiller and heat treat. It appears you have a good shooting bow now. Your elm should come out great. Post it when it's done.

[Lehtis]

Nice bow!

[bjrogg]

Nice bow. Beautiful bend. Can see the lady has good taste.
Bjrogg

[Black Moshannon]

Thanks all for the kind comments. Thanks BowEd for this information, I see how that works. Next time I will have more exact numbers.

[Deerhunter21]

sweeeeetttt!!!