Hey, Y’all,
I finally got my hands on some strawberry guava wood, having been inspired by Manny’s guava creations he posted years ago. Most of his bows were regular guava, but strawberry guava was more accessible to me and also pretty straight. I harvested a couple of small trees while visiting a friend in Honolulu, and managed to get one of them through USDA inspection as luggage. (They’re very particular about what leaves the island, and the inspector found an ant in a knot on one of my logs and rejected it.)
The surviving log was only 2 1/2” in diameter, which presented challenges. Once I got it home, I ripped it down the middle, de-barked, sealed, and let the staves dry for a year.
This wood is resistant to heat-bending — I could only get a bit of recurve at the tips. On the other hand, it’s also resistant to taking set. It’s a very dense wood at .8+ SG, and clogs up a rasp, so I did a whole lot of scraping.
Since this stave had such a high crown, I opted to try my first HLD profile. The stave was pretty straight, except for a kink in the lower limb.
I built up the thin handle with some Osage & ebony, and did the same for the tips. Gave it a goat hide handle wrap and stained it to darkened it up a bit.
It’s 67” ntn and pulls 70#@26”. This sucker shoots straight, quiet and packs a punch. I wanted it on the hefty side to hunt hearty hogs, hopefully back on Oahu someday.
