Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: hedgeapple on March 01, 2009, 01:22:49 am
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Sometimes, you just got to step back and punt. After splitting a black locust and selecting a stave to work, I set forth on what I thought would not be task beyond my capability, that being chasing a ring. Seemed like a simple enough task--remove the sapwood and there you are. Well, I was wrong. I didn't foresee all the dips and dives and streaks of lighter wood under the sapwood. After a week of working with it and noticing today that the belly has a check in it from hanging out in my dry heat house, I've gone to plan B. I shellaced the stave and stored it in the greenhouse to dry, which will give me time to find someone nearby to demostrate the finer art of ring chasing. Any volunteers? :)
I'm disappointe, but not discouraged. I'm going to cut a hickory, remove the bark, rough it out, let it dry for a 2 or 3 weeks, then force dry so I can start building a bow without needing the ability to chase a ring. Oh, I'll learn that art someday soon, just not this month. :) And, when I ready for the challenge my locust stave will be waiting for me.
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Don't get discouraged Dave. Don't pay attention to the color of the wood...it's the texture that tells you where your going.
Wax on...wax off, Grasshopper ;) ;D
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Best of luck!!!
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Thanks Saw Filer. When I scaped through the "sap wood" I hit a chocolate brown patch that would peel up like cork, then the wood would get real solid. But I couldn't find that cork wood consistantly on the stave. Then I would have light patch that feathered out like the end of a ring. I'd scrape and scape and nothing changed. The growth rings looking at the end of stave are easily an 1/2 inch thick.
I'm not giving up. Just taking a step away until I can gain more knowledge. Heck, I have 2 or 3 more locust staves and 3 or 4 osage staves I want to work. :)
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hey Dave!
good thing to cut a hickory tree man, never give up!
when you rough it out, start bending it when green (not more than 5" or so) you'll get it dried within those 3weeks, if you lay it in the warmest, driest place in your house!
you might want to get a ash stave first, or just a wasted piece of a log, and try ringchasing on the stave. ash is really easy to chase. start from one end to another, first get 1-5rings down, and work slowly to the end of the stave, untill all of them are gone. it's important to start from one side and not to chase more than 5rings, you'll get confused ;)
Nick
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Nickf, thanks for the advice. I have very few large trees on my farm. Some of them are ash. But, I hate to cut any large trees because of their scarcity. I do however have hundreds of ash saplings that have grown up in the last 10 years. Some might be up to 4 inch in diameter. I don't know if there are ash on my mothers farm. I've never looked for ash there. I do know there is a lot of hickory at my mother's. I'll have to look around.
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If you are going to cut a hickory, wait until the leaves are out to insure you can in fact just peel the bark off. If the cambium has not begun to develop for this coming year's growth, the bark will not just peel off.
You said you sealed the locust with shellac. Hopefully only the back and ends. You must leave the belly unsealed so the moisture will have a place to escape. Generally belly cracks at this stage will not effect your ultimate bow. Removing wood from the back until you have a good back ring should be the first thing you do before you draw out your profile on the back or reduce the belly side of your stave. You never know, until you remove back wood, what you are dealing with as far as bow design goes or what "things of interest" you are apt to find when you remove each back ring.
I have quite a few staves I set aside until later. Generally when I do get back to them my mind has cleared as to that stave and fresh thoughts and ideas emerge...and that's a good thing. If you screw it up, it's shot. If you set it aside you can always come back later.
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Pat, yes, I did just seal the back and the ends with shellac. The check was on the belly side about where the handle will be. And, is wasn't deep. I put some super glue in the crack for good measure. I did flatten the belly down a couple growth rings when I started working on the stave, just to give me a flat surface to clamp it to the bench. The stave is still over 1 1/2 thick with about 9 growth rings. So I should still have room for some errors. :) Sometimes, retreat is the better part of valour. I think I made the right decission by putting it aside.
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I have found it to be very dificult to chase a ring on black locust when its green. Its not just you! Also it tends to have rings that are made up of both heart and sapwood near the top of the stave. It gets much easier to chase a ring when its dry.
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hedge, the good thing about ash is the rings are clearly visible, but actually any kind of wood with good visible yearrings are a good candidate to learn ringchasing on. but remember, always work from one side to the other one, and don't take too much rings at once ;)
ash itself is also a nice bowwood, and it doesn't need ringchasing either, so you may not want to start it. I just thought about some kind of pine or so as another great 'teacher'.
Nick
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The best teacher is the wood you will be using. I find osage to be one of the easiest to chase and found, in the past,locust to be similar. I believe I could do it blindfolded by sound and feel alone. By easy I don't mean without considerable effort, either! ;D
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I have a hick stave or two if you you'd like to give one a try. I wish I could help with chasin a ring but I just chased my first and would be little help. I can be a little help with hick it's what I have worked with the most.
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Hickoryswitch, that sounds great. I have a couple osage and about 8 locust. I'd be interested in trading one for a hickory clean hickory stave. I'll PM you.
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why ringchase hickory if not practising for other woods?
leave the hickory stave as it is... use some crappy staves ,broken bows, too-short staves/boards for practicing...
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You need a curved scraper for the dips and waves. Jawge
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nickf, that's why I"m going to do hickory as my next bow attempt--I won't have to chase rings.
Jawge, yes I do need to make some round edged scrapers. That's on my list of things during before I begin my next ring chase.
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Hedgeapple,
I bougt a locust stave as my first split stave. It looked great. Armed with all I'd read - and a scraper, I picked my ring and headed down after it. I hit some close knots. They misguided me and I scraped through my ring. Twice! Then I got a spokeshave. I have a groove going now. I shaved through 8 rings (The end of the stave I never made it to) and learned the feel - the crunchy vibration and sound and feel when you've just made it through a ring and into the crunchy and damp earlywood layer above the next ring. This became unmistakeable and I got to the stage (with a very fine spokeshave setting) where I can strip off the earlywood and cleanly reveal the new ring - and using a bright light to follow the ring and identify unscraped earlywood. Before this adeptness, I would carefully spokeshave into the earlywood and leave that as a layer. I would then go backand scrape it off and reveal my shiny ring.
I've never done this before and was anguished at my failed rings, but there were still more rings I just never gave up. The best rings were very deep, but eventually, that's where I was and now ready to do it right. Don't give up on the locust. It's all a matter of feel. I ended up on the first of 3 beautiful rings and got a clean strong back.
Here's a pic of the rings before and after.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Around here in NH the locust trees grow fast so the rings are huge and easy to follow. Seems that isn't the case in other parts of our country. Stick with it, everyone. Sometimes it takes awhile to get a bow. Not that I would know anything about that. LOL. :) Jawge
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Hey keep at it!! That BL is a bear for sure... I finally had to go down to a thick ring and sraped it out end to end with a case trapper pocket knife, the curved skinning blade worked well to get aroung groooves and knots. Prob not the best scraper but worked slow and had lesss room for error. I have tried several different techniques, just seems you have to find what works for you. I have worked on probabaly 3 or four staves now ( rejects of course ) for practice... I am just know fairly confident that I can really chase aring with some amount of accuracy. Its kinda funny because ive got some Hickory and Hophornbeam so I dont have to chase a ring and take a break for a bit. lol Good Luck to you and keep at it.
Mike
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I agree with Ryano about the dry locust. I have made several good bows out of 40 year old locust fence rails. Chasing the ring was pretty easy. On the other hand, I have made several good bows out of locust saplings by just taking off the bark. But do not ask me whether the saplings were black or honey locust. I do not know. I might try a locust leaving the sapwood on and see what happens.
Dan
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Thanks everyone for your replies and encouragement. Well, I got a hickory stave from hickoryswitch. I decided to clean it up a bit. About 2/3 through the "clean up" I realize that I had actually been chasing a ring. WooHoo! Completely by accident and no reason to chase a ring on hickory, but that's what I ended up doing. It's on a long string no for tillering. Hopefully, I'll have it braced by the end of the week. The tips are moving about 3" at 40# right now. I'm taking it slow on removing wood. I'm actually sticking with the scraper for wood removal. Slow, slow, slow.
As far as the BL goes, that stave is curing nicely. I absolutely love the color of BL wood. Sometime in the near future I want to build a bow BL bow with about an 1/8" of light sapwood and the rest darker wood. I thing that would be beautiful. Although I have 8 or 10 BL staves, I might try that bow from a sappling and make a D-bow. I've grown fond of the D-bow look.
Dave
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Don't forget to seal the back and ends with poly or she'll split quicker than you can say 'rings". :) Jawge
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I believe the cherokees actually left a portion of sapwood on the back of their bows made from BL.