Hiya. Couldn’t find anywhere for introductions here so I bought I would jump straight in. After the “big scare” I realised how much I valued this forum as a resource, I’m very happy to see it back up and running, thank you to everyone who worked on it.
I am in the U.K. and the majority of information on bow making online is from he US, there is some overlap in woods but it’s getting harder and harder to source foreign timber here.
One wood I can get is lemonwood but I’m finding it hard to learn about. It’s too expensive for me to just experiment with. However, I’ve since learned because of its provenance it can be hard to get in the US.
It is often used as a belly wood on laminate English longbows, I would like to make a bamboo backed reflex/ deflex bow.
My first bow as a child was a Slazenger bow from lemonwood, I would also like to make my partner a light poundage bow of similar design but I have a few question;
For the laminate, would lemonwood be comparable to Ipe, can I use similar dimensions and proportions or would it be best to treat it like a white wood? Is the growth ring orientation important?
For the light poundage self bow (30lb max) I would like to recurve it, google says lemonwood is very good for steam bending, tbbII says it’s terrible and needs chemical treatment to bend it, any ideas?
As with the laminate, how important is growth ring orientation?
I’m usually very happy to just try and see with white woods but as I said it can be so hard to get premium bow wood I would like the best chance of success I can get!
Here are some of my other bows (I’m just finishing number 5 and 6)
Thank you!
