Jawge cut his teeth with black locust for bow wood. Thought he would have been along by now. My experience with black locust is limited to nine bows, so I am certainly no authority with this wood, or any other wood for that matter. Of the nine attempts the first 5 were failures. I either got belly fret, or the bow's back broke. It had thin rings, so I just removed the bark, and that was the back. Not good locust. The last 4 bows were from a good log with nice thick rings, and knot free, and had some snake. I sinew backed a 45, 52, and 62 inch , and made one 62 inch self bow all in the 45lb range.. Good wood , chasing the back to a good heart wood ring,trapping the back, heat treating the belly on a form to get good alignment, and tillering to the best of my ability are some of the things that helped me to get a good end result. Sinew didn't hurt either. Your rings look good. If those giant knots are close enough together to incorporate into your riser, and still get 62 inches of bow that would be ideal for your poundage, and draw length. Hope this helps a little,and all of this information came from this forum.
