Primitive Archer

I have put up a lot of cables to keep the kids (and adults) on 4 wheelers out of land I hunted, I always covered the cables with a 4" piece of PVC pipe to keep the trespassers from cutting their heads off should they run into a cable after dark, suing me and taking away everything I worked for my entire life. I put the cable about 2 1/2' off the ground and made them too tight to lift and drive under. I locked the cables with huge locks and had the keyed so one key fit every lock on the property. Of course the jerks would vandalize my locks with superglue and breaking keys off in them.

I do use dye almost 100% of the time  to "stain" the wood on bows, just a play on words. The exception is when I use dye from walnut hulls to stain arrows or match repairs to the wood on a walnut stocked B/P rifle.



 The other exception is when I use a nitric acid solution called aqufortis to stain maple gun stocks, the results are quite striking. To use aqufortis one paints it on a stock, let it dry and go over the wood with a heat gun to "blush" the the wood. Heat makes aqufortis react with the tannin in wood to bring out the final color.



It adds a pretty, deep brown color to hickory



One time I thought "aqufortis makes maple look incredible, I wonder what it will do to osage". It was big disappointment, it turned osage as black as coal.

The ASTB has a yearly shoot to raise money for the Alabama Children's hospital, for years I would try to have a bow ready to donate. The club had a free BBQ lunch on Saturday and auctioned off a variety of items after the supper. Tim bid $500 for the bow I mentioned, an enormous sum for a bow back then.

Here is the last bow I donated, a wonderful BBO, the young ladies Grampa bid $300 for her to have it, I included a matched set of arrows that shot well out of the bow. This was the most underperforming BBO that I ever made, I glued reflex into it and it developed string follow. With the tournament date nearing I thought what the heck, got out my heat gun and toasted the belly of this bow to the max. It regained it's reflex, I knew I had a winner with the first shot, the bow had turned into a rocket launcher. 10 years later it is still the high performer it was when I auctioned it off.



The other way I donate stuff is to trade an item for a donation to St Jude. I price the item and give buyer a link to the St Jude donation page. I request a donation conformation number after they donate, when they give me the number I ship the item. I always pay the shipping on any item I donate as a "thank-you" to the person for their donation.

 10 years since this post. I have very mixed luck with sugar maple. I love the way it shoots when it doesn't fret. Most of mine is kiln-dried from the lumberyard.

Old thread here but maybe someone will catch this.

I've had some issues with localized fretting/chrysals on two of my sugar maple bows. Both were from the same tree harvested in the summer in Vermont. A 10 inch log that yielded 6 staves, so I have 4 left. The first bow I build was a flatbow 66" ntn with a pyramid design, 50# at 28". I shot it for months with no issue. After moving it to a slightly more humid climate and leaving it unstrung for a few weeks, I took it down and strung it. After inspection i noticed a 2 inch patch midlimb (lower limb) had developed a serious chrysal network. There is a tiny dip in the back about an inch above it, and i suspect that was the culprit. It did not take long for the bow to take excessive set there and I've set it aside as a learning tool. the maximum width for this bow was 1 and 7/8" at midlimb. 

My second sugar maple bow is 65 inches ntn and 47# at 28". I recurved the last 6 inches and it holds about 1.5 inches of reflex after about 100 shots. I kept the bow fairly wide, 1 and 3/4" inches at midlimb. I was feeling redeemed in the sugar maple camp and the bow was shooting really clean and fast. The other day after stringing it I noticed a localized fret on the lower limb, again. It's smaller than the last patch and the bow has not taken any noticeable set. I have not shot it since but was thinking i would go ahead and put it through the paces and see what happens. Bad idea?

Besides an overstrained cherry bow, I have not experienced this issue with other white woods. I mainly work eastern hop hornbeam and elm, but I've had some great luck with hickory and white oak staves as well.

Both of these maple bows received a decent heat treatment on the belly and showed no obvious signs of tlller imbalance. I've felt some frustration with sugar maple as both these bows did not seem close to be strained to the limit during the build. I'm hoping to use some of the remainder for cores in a horn/sinew bow.

Anyone else seem to run into this with sugar maple? Any suggestions? I'm wondering too what people's experience is with shooting bows after developing minor chrysals, should i assume they will fail dramatically if shot?

I've heard such good things about it and there's plenty around where i live!

Thank you!