Hey fellas,
Lately I been working on this Native American rectangle section self bows. My next step was the question "how strong could whitewood self bows really be". So I went out to the shop and found the most miserable ugly piece of ironwood I had (don't laugh till ya see the pictures). I hacked out a rectangular section single curve bow. While the section is rectangular the back and belly are crowned with square sidewalls.
The stave has 3 major knots with 2 right on the edge and real bad dog leg on the lower limb with a severe prop twist on the outside of the upper.....you know basically firewood. Well since I didn't care if it broke or not I tillered it out really stiff but with even tension....strung it up and cranked it back.....well sorta cranked it back. I had to stand on the string and pull it with both hands
Anyways, my scale broke so I borrowed one but it only goes to 60# and this little bow hit that just shy of 19" so I'm quite sure it's over 70 at full draw.
Enjoy the pictures, just wanted you to know that the Native American's could make about weight whitewood self bow they wanted. This bow is made from the worst piece of wood I had and still made serious weight so I believe that Native bows could have been as heavy as they chose to make them.
rich
PS: don't let the prop twist throw ya off on the tiller
By the way, it's Quasimodo because it's short, hunchbacked, and real strong.
