Locust bow knot

[Black Moshannon]

I'm starting a black locust bow its all seasoned and ready to go. Its going to be around 64" long 1 1/4" wide pulling 45-50 pounds in a bend through the handle D bow design. I roughed it to almost floor tiller bending and tied it down to a  form to go behind the stove so it can lose any extra moisture before i start floor tillering. While reducing the belly one of the knots ended up being very large and going through most of the limb.

Here are some of the things ive thought of doing.
Leave the limb extra wide in that spot like 1 1/2". dig out the rot and pith and fill with wood glue. Or, cut a wood plug that fits the rounded funnel shaped hole and glue it in. Here's some photos. Whats the best and safest way to go with this? thanks

[Hamish]

 If you leave extra wood width at that spot, to compensate for the knot, then there is no need to fill the hole. You can dig out any loose bits.

[Black Moshannon]

Ok I’ll leave it wide. Is hole filling a thing that is done for looks or not at all in this case?

[Hamish]

I honestly don't know why some people bother filling knot holes. As long as you have left enough compensating wood around the knot, you have the same amount of wood doing the work in tension, and compression, as a bow with no knot.

I'd guess a plug might work(at least in compression), if you haven't left enough wood around the knot. In this case the plug wouldn't be anywhere near as good in tension strength at that point, and could lead to a break.

[bownarra]

I agree Hamish. Leave 'extra' width and it will be fine. You need to follow the grain/fibers as they flow around the knot. Like water around a rock in a stream. Be water my friend
Add to that most plugs are made with the grain and so they aren't great in compression either! eg. end grain when they should be flat grain.

[Black Moshannon]

Ok I won’t do a plug how wide should it be ideally? It is around 1 3/4” now. Rest of the limbs with be 1 1/4”

[M2A]

In general you'd want to add the width of the knot to the extra width around it. In your case if the knot is 1/4" wide you would want the limb to be 1.5" at the point of the knot, if knot is 1/2" then limb should be 1.75"at that point. I'd suggest following the grain around the knot best you can and it will do the same thing. I do that with a draw knife and allow it to split the wood more than cut it. But like bownarra said, let the grain flow around the knot like water on a rock and let that determine the width at that point. I can see if I got a piece in the shop as an example but it would take me a few days to show the process and post pics.
Mike         

[Eric Krewson]

DON'T PUT IT BEHIND THE STOVE,  that is unless the stove is off or not burning.  I put a mighty fine osage stave behind the water heater once to help it finish curing, a few days later I pulled my beautiful stave out only to find a cracked and and spilt piece of firewood.

I bet I have ruined 30 or 40 fine green osage staves in my early days by putting them in the attic, behind the water heater, out in a closed up car in the driveway, a sealed up shed in the Alabama summer with the sapwood on or out in direct sunlight just after I split them out of a log.

[rps3]

It looks like you ran a saw on the close side of the knot, so following the grain on that side is going to be tricky and push the knot closer to the edge. With that in mind, leave extra on the other side to work with. You can always remove more later of needed.

[gutpile]

1 1/4 wide is IMO not wide enough for locust limb width , min of 1 1/2 would help with set.. its not osage ,you can get away with 1 1/4 on osage no problem.. gut

[Pat B]

I agree with gut about the width. 1 1/2" would be better and you can narrow the handle area for comfort but leave it a little thicker and still bend through the handle.

[Black Moshannon]

Ok thanks for the advice I will go ahead and leave the knot section wide. Yes I did run it through a saw fairly close to the knot hopefully it won’t end up being a problem. Far as limb width yea it would probly help with set to leave limbs wider but I enjoy the narrower limb with my straight vertical bow shooting style cause there’s no fade area to get in my vision so I’ll just go with narrow as usual. Sometimes I wonder if a Wampanoag who shot upright style  made the Sudbury bow for that reason, since the wide part of the limb doesn’t start till further up the limb

[Black Moshannon]

DON'T PUT IT BEHIND THE STOVE,  that is unless the stove is off or not burning.  I put a mighty fine osage stave behind the water heater once to help it finish curing, a few days later I pulled my beautiful stave out only to find a cracked and and spilt piece of firewood.

I bet I have ruined 30 or 40 fine green osage staves in my early days by putting them in the attic, behind the water heater, out in a closed up car in the driveway, a sealed up shed in the Alabama summer with the sapwood on or out in direct sunlight just after I split them out of a log.

Yea I had some concerns with that but I also figured it seemed pretty dry to begin with… first 24 hours behind there have not had any issues. Haven’t been running the stove cause it’s been unusually warm these couple days