My Cherrybark experience

[simk]

Hey Guys

I had to trim a cherry tree which gave me the opportunity to harvest some cherry bark. I have never done this before and had no plan. After a little experimenting I found a way...
Cut the bark and cambium with a sharp knife.
Peeled the whole bark incl. cambium with a dull knife.
After that it was quite easy to separate the outer bark from the cambium.

I have now a bunch of that stuff. It's around 0.2 to 0.3mm thin.

Anybody has done this? What do you think about the result?

Do you use bark only from very young branches or also from older ones or even trunks?

I'm planning to back bows with...for decoration and for protecting sinew. Any tips for me? Which direction should I lay it down on the bow?

Cheers

[AndrewS]

The direction is around the tree. From older and thicker trees you get longer strips.
If the tree was harvested three or four months ago, then it is easier to peel off the bark.
The dried bark is good to work with a scraper.
When the outside is polished it gets a dark red sheen with various silver shimmers.
In an old Primitive Archer magazine is an article by Grayson wrapping an Ainu quiver with cherry bark. There is also a description of how he makes one long strip from many strips of cherry bark.
Cherry bark as a handle wrap or even as backing looks great. I have it on a few bows.
As a model I had the cherry bark backings of John Strunk.

[simk]

Thanx Andrew 

You maybe misunderstood my question: I'm not asking which direction to peel off the bark but which direction I glue it on the back...? My intention is to glue little overlapping parallel strips around the the bow as seen with birchbark with hornbows.

Do you have pics of your bows or a link to the mentioned strunk bows?

The bark has quite a bit of litte holes...how to deal with that to really protect the sinew? make a double layer? To me it seemed older/bigger pieces of it had more holes than the young ones. That's why I tended to go with younger branches...

Glueing it with hide glue or water resistant white wood glue?

Thank you very much

[AndrewS]

The direction in which you peel off the bark is the direction in which you stick the bark on the back - hence thicker trees = longer strips (do not wrap the sheet completely).
The elongated porous areas in the bark are lenticels. I usually ignored them or handled them very carefully - that's where it tends to tear.
I think John Strunk has chosen another cherry variety as bark donor (Black Cherry). This cherry variety has fewer or smaller / more stable lenticels. In the TBB there is, I think, also a photo of it.
I have already applied the cherry bark with various adhesives. Epoxy, resorcinol glue (Bindan CIN), Ponal parquet glue (joint glue), Bindan propeller glue. I have only used epoxy and resorcinol as backing so far (the glue is dark red and conceals the small holes perfectly).
I would use hide glue as a backing for sinew.
The strips I used were, I think, thicker than your strips. They also came from trees with a diameter of about 20- 25cm. Such a strip has then over 60cm.
The older the tree, the coarser the bark. With a lying tree, you must always look for the right trunk sections, so that you can use the bark well.
I will try to make one or two photos the days (my talent in this regard is modest, however).

[boomhowzer]

I backed one bow with cherry bark. I removed the bark in a similar method as you did. I nailed them to a board and dried them indoors so they were flat. I laid them so the circumference of the tree ran the length of the bow. I used Titebond III and wrapped it with bike tire inner-tubes, letting it cure for 24 hours.

I didn't do a very good job of smoothing the bark on the back of the bow, so when I pulled the inner-tubes off, there were bumps and ripples on the surface of the backing. Despite this, the Titebond III did a great job holding everything down. I sanded one limb of the bow (150 grit) and ended up tearing through the ripples (see photo), so on the other limb I ran over it with fine steel wool and then burnished it with a beer bottle and had much better results (don't have a photo of that limb, sorry :/).

The bow ended up exploding during tillering because I applied too much clamping pressure to the belly of the bow while heat treating and the backing couldn't hold up to the added tension of the compressed fibers underneath (I'm still a beginner). I do think the cherry bark helped it last longer than if it were unbacked, even though the limb that broke was the limb that I sanded through the ripples. Maybe someone with more experience can speak to the strength of the cherry bark?

I read somewhere that dipping the strips in hot water will make them easier to work. This is a terrible suggestion. Never dip the bark in water. I ruined a whole bows worth of perfect bark dipping it in hot water. The bark curled up and could not be uncurled. It was useless. I don't know why anyone would suggest doing that.

Another thing I've read is the distinction between "black cherry" and "wild cherry". As far as I can tell, they're taxonomically the same tree (prunus serotina) and their bark qualities are the same as well. These are the trees that produce tiny, sour red fruits that turn darker later in the summer. Their leaves turn bright red in the fall and are extremely common in my area in Northern Michigan. This is the only cherry bark I've worked with, so I'm not sure how it compares to cultivated cherry varieties. Hope this helps, and good luck with your bark backing!