I don't make a lot of character bows but I cut this Hawthorn several years ago and a few months ago I saw the stave sitting in there with my "good" staves all crooked so I figured it was time to either make a bow with it or use it for firewood. I decided to go for a bow. Here is what I made.
The bow is 64" long and because Hawthorne does not grow big up here is only 1 1/4" wide. The wood is strong and this rather small "tree" made a bow that pulls 50# @ 28". I was quite surprised at how strong and elastic this wood is. If it grew to a bigger size it would be a wood I would be actively harvesting. Here's a few pictures
Unfortunately my full draw has a few inches missing from the top. You can see from the braced belly picture that the limbs do a bit of twisting but the string bisects the handle.
I brought this bow with me on a trip North a few weeks ago thinking I would have time to do some work on it. The bow was tillered but it still needed some sanding. In a restaurant in one town we came across a couple of guys that had an interest in archery and one guy in particular had used traditional bows in the past. I let him hold the braced bow, which was a mistake as he immediately drew the bow back to full draw and held it there for nearly a minute. I didn't say anything but when he did it again I cautioned him that holding a wood bow at full draw like that was not good for it. When I unbraced the bow I was pleased to see that the experience did not have any adverse effect to it. It had not lost any reflex and still had good string tension. If you have access to Hawthorn then I would suggest you try it
