Primitive Archer

Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: JacksonCash on May 09, 2014, 11:48:57 pm

Title: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: JacksonCash on May 09, 2014, 11:48:57 pm
I'm really wanting to get started on my next bow, and I think I want to do a self bow. I don't have any materials picked out yet, but I'd like to get my hands on a stave of something for it. Does anybody have some pretty forgiving self bow wood ideas?
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: Pat B on May 09, 2014, 11:50:37 pm
Jackson, post on the Trading Post. Have trade items ready. You'll get a stave.
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: JW_Halverson on May 09, 2014, 11:51:04 pm
Takes a load of poor tillering before an osage stave will break!  If well seasoned, it is not as hard to work as some folks say (them what don't know how to sharpen their tools). 
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: JacksonCash on May 10, 2014, 12:59:31 am
Jackson, post on the Trading Post. Have trade items ready. You'll get a stave.

I don't have too much to trade right now, unless someone is willing to give up a stave for a couple bags of goose feathers! But I recently spied some scrap from the water jet machine at work that may be just the right thickness to sharpen into broadheads...
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: Josh B on May 10, 2014, 01:06:59 am
Goose feathers? ???  Do tell.   I might be interested in some goose wing feathers.  Josh
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: JW_Halverson on May 10, 2014, 01:07:51 am
As long as those feathers are from domestic geese, they are cool. But if they are wild geese, they are a migratory species and any trade/sale is considered a Federal violation of the Lacey Act.  No sense running a-fowl of a Federal charge!
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: Josh B on May 10, 2014, 01:10:26 am
Thus the do tell JW.   I don't want any trouble of that sort!  Josh
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: JacksonCash on May 10, 2014, 01:26:54 am
Looks like I'll be keeping a hold of my goose feathers. Wife said she wants a quill pen... I wonder how she'd feel about a dozen of them?
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: Blaflair2 on May 10, 2014, 09:02:31 am
I'm actually cutting some osage out by trumansburg today. By myself :0( maybe we could work something out. I'll message ya when I figure out what I got.
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: JacksonCash on May 10, 2014, 01:36:50 pm
Keep me posted- Been meaning to contact you and meet up, I think you are the only one on here whose decently close.
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: Blaflair2 on May 10, 2014, 03:48:14 pm
Neolithic man lives close, and skarhand is about an hr or so away. Got my tree cut. It had been struck by lightning so it had basically another tree inside. I'll post some pix
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: Eric Krewson on May 10, 2014, 04:08:30 pm
Beware lightning struck trees. I had a 24" cherry trunk I had milled for gunstock wood, the tree had been struck by lightning. It sliced up into the prettiest slabs, I thought I was in gunstock heaven until I wet my pile of slabs and noticed the water was seeping through the slabs through tiny hairline cracks. The lightening strike was like a bomb going off in the wood. I ended up with a huge pile of carefully milled firewood.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/ekrewson/sawing%20wood/firstcut.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ekrewson/media/sawing%20wood/firstcut.jpg.html)

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/ekrewson/sawing%20wood/loaded.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ekrewson/media/sawing%20wood/loaded.jpg.html)

On checking on the other flintlock sites I found that others had learned the hard way about trying to save lightning struck trees, they found the same hairline cracks as I did.   
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: JW_Halverson on May 10, 2014, 04:11:34 pm
That amount of raw energy blasting thru the tree turns water into steam and virtually detonates.  Maybe you will get lucky?
Title: Re: Looking to start first self-bow
Post by: Blaflair2 on May 10, 2014, 04:56:38 pm
It looks like it was hit then grew another 15 20 years. Well see when I split it into staves