Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Lee Lobbestael on August 04, 2013, 11:50:59 pm
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Does anyone on here have any tips or tricks to avoiding frets in black locust? I have tried twice so far and on both I thought that the tiller was fine and that I went plenty slow and they were plenty wide enough but still I found chrysals in the bellies of them! I have more stave I want to try but would like to know if there is anything I can do to minimize the chance of ruining another bow.
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Wide and PERFECT tiller.
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And a good heat treating helps alot.
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ok i'm going 67" long and two inches wide
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These are the only bows I have on the internet, but I've made a few other BL bows without trouble by keepign it wide, or extremely well tillered.
http://imgur.com/a/r9EYZ
http://imgur.com/a/mkQrt
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http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,38697.msg517454.html#msg517454
Black locust is one of the best woods there is (imo!), I'd take a good stave of b.locust over any other wood.
As for tricks.....well the trick is getting a perfect tiller very early and don't worry about bracing it early. If the tiller is good you should be fine. Don't bother going really wide it isn't necessary and will actually increase your chance of getting chyrsals in a counterintuative sort of way. If the back isn't very crowned already then you should definately trap the back. Locust's 'problem' is the same as many other woods excessive strength in tension compared to it strength in compression.
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wow those are some sweet bows! Love that recurve! How does going wider increase the odds of developing chrysals tho?
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Belly tempering seems to help with the compression strength of locust...at least for me it did and I'm terrible with locust.
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Layman's terms....
Proper moisture content and seasoned wood
Proper design for the intended weight and draw....(not all locust is created equall either)
A properly executed belly temper ....(not to dark with locust)
Then a properly executed tiller....(much can be said of this and its not about the end at full draw...its everything you do BEFORE full draw is reached.....)
Black locust is a bowyers classroom on how to properly execute all the critical and most important areas of making great bows....
And I LOVE black locust...top notch bow wood in my book
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I have a 57"L 4"w stave of BL and this will help me a lot. Although I am a little concerned about it being as short as it is, it looks as though I will have to make a bend in the handle bow from it. I believe it is wide enough to get two staves from it so I guess I could splice them together. It looks as though I will have my work cut out for me with this stave. At the very least I will get a good education.
Grady
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Everything Blackhawk said. With the emphasis on seasoned wood..........Art
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To me it sounds like doing an excellent job on floor tillering is really helpful along with very even bending long stringing here.
By seasoned you mean 6 months or so after roughing it out [storing inside the house]or until it quits losing moisture at 50% humidity for two weeks?Kind of a technical question but the experts are on this one so I gotta ask......LOL.
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Air-dried, seasoned wood for a minimum of 2-3 yrs. Wood that is tempered my seasonal changes. Then reduced to bow stage and M/C brought down to appropriate levels after that. This conclusion is mostly based on arrow-making material where best performance is achieved, but I've always said you can learn more about bow wood from making arrows ;D.........Art B
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Locust seems to vary greatly from stick to stick. Ive had terrible luck and good luck. Im learning more about looking at each pieces density. It seems to matter. I have two identical staves of locust cut almost the same time, but in different states. Their physical weight is drastically different.
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I know just what you mean Pearly. That BL bow I made from those billets you sent me I can only take outside and shoot on a sunny day. Any other time I'm afraid the darn thing will float away >:D!
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OK.I'll try to make one this winter and go very slowly.It's just wood.Lightly heat temper the belly after floor tillering it[to maybe help avoid chrsyalling] to about 60# for a future 52# bow.Does it gain poundage like hickory will after heat treating?The BL here in Iowa is'nt quite as dense as my hickory but denser than my red elm.Which puts it in the mid .60 density range.Which falls in line with what the Bow Wood section in the TTB 4 book says it is.
Sorry I'm hijacking your thread here Lee but I'm curious too.
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OK.I'll try to make one this winter and go very slowly.It's just wood.Lightly heat temper the belly after floor tillering it[to maybe help avoid chrsyalling] to about 60# for a future 52# bow.Does it gain poundage like hickory will after heat treating?The BL here in Iowa is'nt quite as dense as my hickory but denser than my red elm.Which puts it in the mid .60 density range.Which falls in line with what the Bow Wood section in the TTB 4 book says it is.
Sorry I'm hijacking your thread here Lee but I'm curious too.
I live in Iowa most of the locust around here is honey locust where in Iowa do you live ?
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Southern Iowa.Mid range.About 10 miles from the Iowa Missouri border.We've got the honey locust here too.By a little town called Corydon.Come get ya some BL if you want.PM me and I'll give you my ph.no.
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Southern Iowa.Mid range.About 10 miles from the Iowa Missouri border.We've got the honey locust here too.By a little town called Corydon.Come get ya some BL if you want.PM me and I'll give you my ph.no.
One of these days well have to meet up n shoot some bows 8) I can get black locust where I am just harder to find
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To be perfectly honest with everyone. I love black locust. We don't have too much osage in these mountains but plenty of locust and it"s the dense kind. The first bow I ever built was locust and never had any trouble with frets, and the bow that I have hunted with for the last five years is made of locust and no problems. I have talked to local bowyers and have been told that they have yet to build a locust bow that hasn't fretted. I think that the wood here is more like osage in the fact it is so dense and I think that you can get by with it being a little bit narrower and thicker. But what do I know?
Steve
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Only way I'm going to believe that tale is if'n I could try some of your black locust Oldhippy >:D ;D.
Seriously though, I'll take a good BL bow over a good Osage any day. Made a few decent shooters out of crappy BL wood so I've an inkling of what a really great piece of black locust will produce........Art B
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Ask Gun Doc and Blackhawk about this ole mountain stuff and see what they think. I never thought about it before giving out a couple of staves
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I've said it before...I've used locust from Michigan,Ohio,Indiana, here in pennsylvania, and soon to be WNC thanks to old hippy....I've noticed differences in density between some of them and the thinner ringed and not so great ratio wood seems to be more brittle,and probably more prone to fretting...but I've still never had frets on any of my locust bows yet(cross my fingers)even with some of the less dense average to below average density locust.....the stuff I got from Steve is the densest locust I have seen yet and can't wait to try it(it rings like a bell,and sounds and feels very osage like)...I haven't had much time in the shop because the summertime shoots have been in full swing for me...but I hope to soon because it appears to be primo locust,and I wanna push its limits and see what it can do ....and I like trading with old hippy ;D
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I lived in Maine until just over three years ago when I moved here to western KY. Black locust was the best bow wood I had in Maine. I always made "pyramid" style bows and chrysalling was not a problem. A bow tapered only in width and of uniform thickness in the limbs comes off the band saw with a nearly perfect tiller. All the wood is equally strained except for differences in the wood itself. Those differences do make a little fine tuning necessary.
One of my bows was over strained, but because of the pyramid design, it was still equally strained. It had chrysals from end to end, but shot fine and only broke when I accidentally overdrew it after about a year of shooting.
Back locust is great bow wood. I use hickory and elm more now, but only because those are so easy to get on my own land.
Jim Davis
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Why is black locust considered to be such a great bow wood if it crysals easily? Is it fast?
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It doesn't chyrsal easily it chrysals it you do something wrong. It tells you exactly what you have done wrong. It's not about good/bad luck it's about proper execution. Take a look at my recurve that thing is strained to within an inch of its life and no chyrsal's......it is also the fastest bow i've ever made. B.locust has a set of properties that make it the fastest wood around - I really do think that if people started chasing the 200 fps goal (maybe not achievable but that's what makes it fun!) locust would be right, right up there. My bow is still shooting the same speed as it was when new. 185 - 190fps with 9 - 10 grains per pound. This bow is almost an annomily!
What BH said about it's how you get to full draw is what you want to be listening to.
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Well, let's say, if you're tillering your BL bows just as well as Mike and it still frets, then it has to do with how well the wood is seasoned or regional and/or density differences.............Art B ;D