Sinew backed Black Gum bow.

[bassman211]

I built this bow 60 in. long; 45 lb @ 25 in. draw; bow shoots 153 ft per sec average; weighs 17 oz; stave was gifted by a friend and had to be split by chainsaw due to interlocking grains!

[willie]

nice profile. whats that over the sinew?

[bassman211]

More pics

[bassman211]

more pics

[bassman211]

Full draw

[bassman211]

First full draw pic was distorted. The backing is cloth.

[Stixnstones]

Thats a good lookin bow...

[Pat B]

Very nice, Bassman. What is your opinion of black gum as a bow wood?

[bradsmith2010]

nice one congrats,,

[boomhowzer]

Sweet bow, bassman. The whole thing sounds interesting. You split the stave with a chainsaw? How did that go down? Tie it up on some saw horses and let 'er rip? And how thick was the stave when you split it?

Then you said it has a "cloth" backing. What do you mean by cloth? Like an old t-shirt? Something from the fabric store?  Whatever it was, what was the cloth made out of? Cotton? Linen? Polyester? etc...

Thanks for elaborating, and yeah, sweet looking bow!

[bassman211]

boom the backing is fabric cotton cloth. Will B. cut the tree, and chain sawed the logs, and reduced them to staves. He said the wood would not split easily much like Elm.. He knows I like to play around with different wood to make bows so he gifted me with a stave. Pat B from what I can gather from making this bow Black Gum works pretty well as a bow wood.. The bow holds close to 1 inch of reflex. Takes rather nicely to heat treating, and I am pleased with it's speed. Will B., and I make bows together some times, and he has more staves. He wants to try a 68 inch recurve  for the next bow made from this wood. Then we will make more bows ,and get a better idea of what can be done with Black gum. So far not bad at all. Thanks guys for your kind words.

[burchett.donald]

   Bassman, Excellent bend man, looks well balanced in your hands...    When you say Black Gum are you referring to Black Tupelo?  That grows here in S.C. and I enjoy the red color in the Fall, seems to hold on to it's leaves really late...We learned early on not to try and split it or any Gum tree for fire wood because of the interlocking grain...Had my axe bounce back at me when it was green!
                                                                                                                                                                          Don

[bassman211]

Yes Don. Black Tupelo. Thank you. To be honest Will B. introduced me to this wood,  and did all the leg work to get it to stave form. It was a straight clean stave, and the wood was nice to work with. This was the first bow of the 11 staves that he has, so we will be making more bows from it in the future. Next is self bows. Seems to have promise.

[airkah]

Bow looks great and I love the experimentation on a new bow wood. I can't wait to see what else you are able to make out of it.

[PaSteve]

Good to see you posting another bow, Bob. Don't know if black tupelo grows around here or not. Sounds like it would be a good candidate for fire hardening. Great job on the bow. Your tiller always looks great.