Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: JW_Halverson on September 08, 2013, 04:54:20 pm
-
I have a number of VM staves now and I was wondering if those of you that have more extensive experience with it might want to post your "rules of thumb" for working it.
I hate to rely on my memory for things like this, which is why I want a thread to document it. This also might be the start of a nice series of threads for new bowyers. I also understand that there will be debate on the issue and that "your mileage may vary".
What style bows do you think it lends itself to making?
How does it respond to heat?
Can it stand decrowning without backing?
Do you find trapping the back or belly helps?
What pitfalls does this wood hold?
Is it really the Osage Orange of whitewoods?
...and anything else that comes to your minds!
If this thread yields the wisdom I think is out there, I can distill it and modify the initial post with the best of it so someone doesn't have to read 12 pages to get their answers.
-
I've made a few bows from it, and I have messed with heat bending, twisting, recurving, trapping, etc.
I always use the older, knarly staves and those have their problems that limit performance but look cool to me. I've seen your staves and I think yours are more ideal.
Still, VM is not osage, in general, although some staves are better than others. Oceanspray, on the other hand, is another story.
In general I would keep the dimensions somewhere between osage and hickory.
I would not violate the back without backing.
Responds to corrections well but sometimes fights you.
Responds to trapping and heat treating.
Make sure its dry.
I'm looking forward to seeing how your bow(s) come out.
-
I've made a few bows from it, and I have messed with heat bending, twisting, recurving, trapping, etc.
I always use the older, knarly staves and those have their problems that limit performance but look cool to me. I've seen your staves and I think yours are more ideal.
Still, VM is not osage, in general, although some staves are better than others. Oceanspray, on the other hand, is another story.
In general I would keep the dimensions somewhere between osage and hickory.
I would not violate the back without backing.
Responds to corrections well but sometimes fights you.
Responds to trapping and heat treating.
Make sure its dry.
I'm looking forward to seeing how your bow(s) come out.
Can you clarify? Does it respond to trapping the back or the belly?
-
JW..I hope you don't mind me throwing out one more question-
what tools do you use for working it ?? It seems I've read in the past that it doesn't like a drawknife or
vice versa...
and I have a set of already spliced billets waiting in the corner...
-
Here is my favorite demensions for a VM bow.
Stiff 4" handle Flatbow
60-62"ntn
1 5/8" wide. 14 1/2" from center on each limb.
Then taper to 7/16".
VM will wanna take a little set. I heat treat the crap out of it and it works pretty well.
90% of my VM bows have violated backs and grain runoff. 0% of them have broken or lifted a splinter.
If you want I can post a drawing or something.
-
Feel free to post a drawing, Bryce, for folks like me that can't read.
Sonny, I have more tools than Carter has liver pills. Many of them see very little use, but each has a use and a value. I've found that I don't like using a draw knife on most white woods, but that's probably just me.
-
Can always make it a couple inches longer too
(http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/hh544/bryceott/null_zpsf85e2970.jpg)
-
Can always make it a couple inches longer too
(http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/hh544/bryceott/null_zpsf85e2970.jpg)
Can I ask why you chose to go with 2 1/2 inch fades?
-
That's just how I do it :) being only 60" long the fades do some workin.
-
Alright, good information.
-
Trap the back. Its tensions strong. Not as unbalanced as some woods so I lightly trap, in general, but you should bend test to know what you have.
Here's one that was a full sized bow but I had to cut the tips off because steam corrections showed flaws in the swirling wood. You can see how this old growth piece has a knarly, flat back with lumps and bumps--my favorite. I'll make an ambush bow from this. But I trapped this one.
-
i have nothing to contribute but joy for whats happening on this thread. thank you for starting it, i hope more people chime in.
chuck
-
Great idea JW. I like the drawing Bryce. Would it be feasible to make a "one size fits all" drawing with letters in each dimension. Then people could contribute their dimensions like A=1.5" B=65" etc.
-
For correcting or bending I have had great results with boiling or steam.
-
Cool Thread...
Vine Maple is on me To Do list.
-gus
-
For correcting or bending I have had great results with boiling or steam.
+1
-
For correcting or bending I have had great results with boiling or steam.
+2
Word of caution though, It's been my experience with steam (limited now to about 4 staves) that you gotta be careful to bend slow and firm or you can lift a splinter or develop a crack. Not that I've done this of course.
Also, the woods fibrous so when scraping it can tear if you go against the grain. Fun to work though and smells great when you heat treat!
-
I've been using a mircoplane rasp to remove wood on the vine maple bow that I'm working on. It works really well. What Dan said about the fibrous nature of the wood is very true, it clogs up most tools really quickly. I do use a draw knife to rough out my vine maple staves and it works alright, you just have to watch out for grain tear-out.
-
a few thoughts to add:
Tools: rasp and scraper for tillering.
It's hard to get the bark off , and easy to violate the back while doing so. Here's a method that works OK- 1.Do this all on the day you cut it. use a spokeshave to remove about half the thickness of bark.2. cover with a towel and pour on HOT water. let sit 15 min and repeat. 3. carefully scrape with a DULL drawknife, or even a wood or plastic scraper. Beware of the little bumps- that's where it will want to tear out. Back with rawhide if violated.
tolerates fast drying if reduced to near-finished dimentions, even with unsealed ends. Sometimes dries into huge reflex or sideways bends.
If the tree was leaning, use the top side, the tension side.
sapling bows 1 1/4 diameter will work.
My favorite design- bendy handle 60 inch long, 1 3/8 wide, 3/8 tips with back nocks.
-
Just finished My first VM bow.
It didn’t even like my cabinet scraper (lots of chatter at every knot). I did all the tillering with the fine side of my 4 in1 rasp. Then finished with 60 grit sand paper.
Next one I am going to try heat treating.
Keith
-
This is great! As a newby this is the kind of information I want. ;D ;D
-
What aaron said. Ferrier's rasp--end of story. I have a 56" bendy handle that started with 3" of reflex and ended up straight. String is off center of handle and it shoots really nice and fast.
I've found that the bark can be left on, at least on the old growth stuff, and after a month or two a point will come when the bark will pop off in big "sheets", exposing and nice clean back. That's what I did with the stave in the pics above. As aaron said, if I had tried to scrape that bark off I would have violated all those bumps and wrinkles. So either get the bark off asap or pop it off later.
-
Oscillating Sanders are my choice, and you ignore the woods wildness till you start to get your bend. Then go back remove wood around areas that are not needed and add weight. ;)
VMB
-
Just another word about vine maple bark. Peel it off as soon as you bring it home! I have never had a checking problem with vine maple, and if you leave it on, the stuff that dosen't pop off in the tillering process is murder to remove! Other than that vine maple is a pleasure to work with, and is super forgiving to the new bowyer!
Dale
-
Can’t remember who recommended it. Lots of patients with a wet wash cloth and a spoon (no sharp edges) to scrape off the lasts of the stubborn bark. The bark gets noticeably softer when wet & the spoon can work down into all of those valleys.
-
It's been cut for a month and I haven't had a spare minute to run it thru the bandsaw, so I have left the bark on. I imagine I am in for the dickens of a time getting the bark off, but that's ok.
Keep the stuff coming, getting a good list of tips and tricks for the species.
-
No you won't be in for a dickens. Find a spot where the bark is lifting, get a knife blade under it, or a screwdriver, butter knife, etc., and start prying it up. Alot will pop off, some will not.
If there is not a loose spot of bark then just drawknife down gently to the wood, expose a one or two inch area and get the screwdriver in there and start prying.
If for some reason it won't start popping then do what aaron said.
-
Getting the bark off isn't as hard as there making it out to be. I leave all the bark on my VM staves.
-
The point is it CAN be. I cleaned up a truck load of VM and I had some come bark come of like an orange and others were like scraping melted cellophane of a cinderblock. both cut the same day and stored side by side.
Also, a great tool I use is called a 5 in 1. It's a paint scraping tool. Mine's really dull but it has 5 different scraping edges in your hand all the time.
-
Do you guys in the Pacific Northwest think that these guidelines would work for Rocky Mountain Maple(Acer glabrum)?
-
Getting the bark off isn't as hard as there making it out to be. I leave all the bark on my VM staves.
Worse yet, you left the bark on the one you sent me, too!
-
You betchyah!
-
Do you guys in the Pacific Northwest think that these guidelines would work for Rocky Mountain Maple(Acer glabrum)?
Yes!
-
I've only made 3 vinemaple bows. I have the 4 th setting in the corner.
All of mine have been stiff handled,center shot bows. I made, 2 60" and a 56" all threes were in the low 50"s. Wth the 56 incher 56 pounds.
I say they were 1 3/8's to 1 5/8's for the short 56# bow.
I put 2 to 3 inchs of reflex in it will green with no heat.
I like to tiller as far back into the fads as I can.
I tempered all 3 bows really slow.
Fliped the tips of one of the 60" bow.
I used the back of all 3 bows that was under the bark.
I'm not much on draw knives either. I use a hatchet mostly to bebark if I have to. Cut out to a simi bow form. From then on I use a couple different rasps. Clear down to sand papering.
It's not a OSAGE but makes a nice bow.My next personal bow is going build for spring gobbler. Going to be a 54" 55#s @26". I gobbler hunt and shoot off my butt on the ground.