winged elm with a head like a gar

[H Rhodes]

  This is a winged elm bow with a bit of history.  I made it for a trade with halfeye initially.  I thought I was sending him a fifty - fifty-five lb bow.  It went from Alabama to Michigan and finished drying out up North.  He sent it back to me pulling right at 70lbs at 29"!  I sent him another human weight bow and hung this beast up for a while till I could figure out what to do with it.  It was a helluva bow, showing an inch or so of reflex after shooting it in.  I couldn't use a bow so heavy and it would rattle your teeth on release, so I retillered it to 50lbs at 29".  It has a weird little whoopty do in one limb and a big knot near the other end.  The tips are thinned down to about a quarter inch and it reminds me of a long nosed gar for some reason.  I shot an aluminum 1916 arrow with a 125 grain tip 230 yards out of this bow the other day.  It is the fastest shooting fifty pound bow I have made to date.  Here she is - the gar head bow....  2" wide at the fades, sort of Holmegardish in profile, 60" NTN, 50 @ 29 with that same inch of reflex holding after hundreds of shots.  Heat treated with no reflex added.

[blackhawk]

Funny story...maybe it picked up some good mojo now from its trip up north

[Badly Bent]

It would appear that you came right out of the woods at the end of your recently ended deer season and been doing nothing but making bows since. Another good one Howard, that sounds like some incredible cast in that bow.
Keep em' coming man

Greg

[half eye]

Howard, thank goodness ya come to your senses, that thing was a moose. Looks like a killer now though, like them skinny tips. The white oak ya sent me is equally quick and hard hittin and I can string this one.
rich

[Will H]

Sweet bow man I like the skinny tips

[H Rhodes]

Blackhawk, I learned a bunch about drying wood with this winged elm - mostly that, even if you have heat treated a piece of wood, it can still lose a bunch of weight after the heating, and that I will never be able to dry a piece of wood in Alabama in a shed outside.....  shoulda known that I guess.  I am living and learning.  And a little Michigan mojo never hurt anything....  Halfeye probably is to blame with some of his secret formulas!

Yeah, Greg I have gone bow building crazy since deer season let out on Jan. 31.  I also bought a Porter-Cable belt sander that I have fallen in love with.  I have been a mostly hand tool kind of guy up to now, but I sure have enjoyed myself lately and my elbows don't hurt as bad!  I built a hickory board bow today in about an hour! 

Rich, you can vouch for what a monster this winged elm was.  It was too much bow!  You would love it now. 

Thanks Will H.  I tried to be bold and cut em skinny and it sure made the handshock go away.

[Carson (CMB)]

I really like that bow.  Good story too. 

[Pappy]

Very nice work.Good story also.One of my favorite bows is Winged elm,sweet shooter but like you said hard to dry out and keep dry in Tennessee.
  Pappy