Help chasing B.L. ring

[newknapper]

Its always been my understanding that you dont leave any sapwood on a locust bow.  I guess I heard wrong

I'm in the process of taking it off now

[Papa Matt]

Bootboy~

  You didn't hear wrong, you heard right. It's just that in primitive bowmaking it's real tough to establish any hard and fast 100% rules, cause as sure as you say it, somebody will go and do it different and it'll work just fine. MOST people do remove BL sapwood. I always do.

~~Papa Matt

[Hillbilly]

I always have, too. But.....I have read that a good percentage of the old locust Indian bows were a mixture of sapwood and heartwood. I'm going to try making one like that sometime and see how it works.

[Papa Matt]

See there ya go. No hard and fast rules.

I've never read that Hillbilly, but ya know what? It would make sense. The indian could peel off the bark off a sapling and do it like HHB, not touch the whitewood at all, or at most scrape off just a ring or two, if that much. We do know that the native always looked for the easiest and most efficient method to get his meat, and this would fit the description.

when you try a sap/heartwood BL be sure and let us know how it turns out.

~~Papa Matt

[Pat B]

Dirty Dan posted a BL sapling bow on TradGang("Bowyers Bench") that he cut, shaped and let it dry for a week or so. Looks like a cool bow. I think I'll try one.
   Maybe Dan will post pics on here for all to see.     Pat

[Papa Matt]

Pat,

What was the diameter of that sappling when cut?

~~Matt

[Pat B]

Matt, Dan didn't say what size sapling but from the pics it looks like 2" to 3" in diameter. The bow is 64" long and pulls 54#@26"          Pat