Here’s some of what I’ve been up to, four straight staves and four recurves. The four on the right are my abcd choices right now but I do have a few other staves I’m keeping an eye on for the trade bow.
Only the first four are trade bow candidates, the others are just interesting projects. Optimistically one of them may yield a heavy enough bow but probably not.
From right to left in the first picture.
1. Pignut hickory. Clean piece with reflex and fantastic latewood ratio. 65” and 1 1/4” wide. I think dimensions will be challenging for me in terms of making weight. I’d rather make lighter bow than a bow that takes a lot of set—but I’m optimistic because it’s really good hickory
2. Hornbeam. Green deflex stave with plenty of character. Will likely be shortening, flipping the tips and quick drying.
3. Shagbark hickory with a thin sapwood back. Chased down to a sapwood ring and with a heartwood belly.Still not sure about the design. Maybe an english longbow, maybe a flatbow. I think there may be a heavy bow in here.
4. Summer cut bitternut hickory. Great stave, just needs a little steam bending.
5. Wild rose, about 3/4” wide, hollowed out to remove the pith and recurved. I used the deflex side of the stave then recurved, so that the reflex would not be overwhelming and to make sure the good compression wood was on the belly. This stuff is incredibly flexible. I harvested a piece about 1” wide 70” long that turned out to be rotten, so I did a bend test on the green wood and was able to bend tip to tip then into a circle about the size of a baseball before it started cracking on the back. Small scrap pieces I’ve dried seem very snappy.
6. Viburnum lentago. Been finding some interesting pieces. Usually shrubby but sometimes in clusters you can get a nice stave. Creamy white sapwood with swirly caramel heartwood. Smells like stinky cheese and old wet socks. Seems very flexible
7. Dogwood static recurve. Been chipping away at this one slowly at the vise and floor tillering.So far this dogwood seems very tough.
8. Hickory short narrow static. I’ve gotten 40# from these dimensions but we’ll see what happens. Dried to 6% mc
