Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: recurve shooter on May 16, 2008, 06:50:07 pm
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sup fellers? has any of yall ever heard of silverleaf maple? i got some of the stuff growing down here and was wondering if ya can make a decent bow out of it. it looks pretty streight and stuff, but it's pretty soft, so i dont know. holler back.
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Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) is common through the South in river floodplains and is also planted a lot as a shade tree.. It is probably the lightest and weakest of the maples except for maybe box elder. It has really brittle wood, and I personally wouldn't try to use it for a bow if I could find anything else. With that said, though, Jamie (MichiganBowGuy) posted a bow awhile back that he said was made from silver maple, and it looked like a good'un.
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well, we shall see in a few months. i just cut down a 10 foot section of trunk about 10 inches across. gonna start on it prolly at the end of the summer. also got some iron wood/blue beech/musclewood/hornbeam/whatever other names there are for it, pecan, oak and something els that i cant id drying. gonna start on the oak this weekend.
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Try everything you can find in your area that might make a bow. There are probably a lot of good bow woods out there just waiting to be discovered.
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thats my plan. just waiting till i aint got to swim through my woods. i floated the maple out, got like 3 feet of water back there, but i had to go get it. knew where it was and that it was newly fallen.
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I have made two from it....both fromTrees in My Own Yard here...I still have on Stave left.... I didn't have any problem with it at all....but then I like Sycamore as a Bow Wood too....and I don't know too many others that would waste their time with it
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i made that bow to prove a point.
it made one!
that little bow is wicked fast!
things to remember tho...coat the ends as they will check fast,i use pitch.
leave bark on for 2 weeks.
then take bark off and grease it.
then scrape of pitch and re grease and put in hot car for a week.
every day it is in car grease and wipe down good.
then work the bow, keep it long and DO NOT HEAT AND FLIP TIPS OR RECURVE.
just work as is,man tall and you will make a shooter in a month from it is cut.
mbg
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Making bows is a lot of time and hard work. I'd stick to realiable wood and the list doesn't include silver maple.
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Don ....where is your sense of adventure????
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ok, cool. will do. what do ya coat the ends with? wood glue?
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you can coat them with Glue...that works fine...also Varnish....Urethane....or shellac will all work too
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ok, cool. next probably ignernt question. what dose greasing the wood do?
also, i just went and checked on my staves drying in the shed. SOMETHING IS EATING THE BARK off of one stave of a kind of wood of which im uncertian. any adea what it is? it aint touched the wood, just the bark. huh. oh well, thats less bark i got to scrape off.
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The Grease is a Sealant too and will slow down the Evaporation of Moisture from the Wood and keep it from Checking or worse....cracking open....as for the Bark being eaten away....it may be beetles or Grubs....maybe you should debark it...and seal the Back....just to make sure that they aren't eating the wood away and you just haven't seen it yet!!!
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might just do that. i think its woodbees eating it, and they will eat the wood soon. gonna do that later. and i aint got any grease, is there anything els i can use? or maby just leave the bark on longer?? ???
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coat it all with Shellac....or Varnish after you take the Bark off
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How's it work for a laminate? Say with a thin hickory backing? Last time I tried it it failed on the back.
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yeah, and what style of bow should i go for? i like elbs but im not sure what i sould do with this wood.
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two words..........Wide Limbed
::)
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e.d. : those widelimbed bows ain't for everybody,you know! god! >:D O:)
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all of mine kind of unitentionally turn out like that. i guess i'll have a reason for it this time.
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e.d. : those widelimbed bows ain't for everybody,you know! god! >:D O:)
I know....anyone can shoot a Stick.....but it takes a Real Man to Shoot a Wide Limbed Bow!!!!!
::)
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Whenever I build a bow you can bet it's pretty wide. I built a couple narrow white wood bows and they made bows but they don't shoot nearly as fast as my wide ones. I would go wide with the smallest tips you feel comfortable with.
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wide, thin tips, what about the handle. can someone post me a pic of how i should work the handle on the thing. dont want it to break in the middle.
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I agree with Old Bow on better choices of wood. That stuff breaks and crumbles every time the wind blows. With that being said I would follow El Destructo's advice and go wide. If you've got the time and wood, why not build a couple with different profiles and see which one you like better. Good luck.
Tracy
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yeah, i know i got better choices, i just want to try this stuff for the heck of it. and i think i can get at least 4 staves, so yeah. gonna try it out.
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I would suggest a long D-bow with a slightly bending handle.
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I would suggest a long D-bow with a slightly bending handle.
My favorite type :).
Wide limbs bows usually are faster [white wood] unless the narrow bow is longer. I've got some 70+" narrow white wood bows that draw over 75# that will spit an arrow just as fast, if not faster, than the shorter wide limb cousin. Plus, they're so vastly much easier to make and tiller :).
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would someone please post or pm me a pic of how i should work this crap? :P
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PM sent ;)