KCT D/R bow

[BowEd]

A few years ago I was at Sam's saw mill and one of his son's gave me a KCT stave.Now since they pretty much only cut pallet wood from large logs this future bow has a dead pan flat back.Thought it might be a good candidate for a bow.It's a long one.68" NTN.Did'nt have the width I wanted so I made it longer.A natural humped deflex in the handle.I floor tillered it and short string balanced the limbs.Took a little deflex & propeller out of one end 12" from the tip.Pulled it to 16" I guess.Estimated it was about a 50 to 55 pound bow.Mass weight was 20.00 ounces and I had'nt even carved the handle out yet.It took what I thought a lot of soft set.So I give her the old heat treatment.Not extreme but still took about 40 minutes per limb.Could be because it was only 25 degrees in the tractor shed.....lol.Turned pink like always.Gave it about 3.5" reflex.Hopefully it will gain some weight like most white woods.Maybe someone can tell me if that's supposed to happen with this type wood.I've done a couple before but backed them with sinew and linen string and gave those away to people who thought they needed them.I'll let it rehydrate a while now and try to finish her up.Here's a few pics.Thanks for looking.

[bowandarrow473]

I like it, very sleek and simple looking, also the wood is a beautiful color, have you stained it or is it purely natural?


KCT is Kentucy Coffe Tree correct?

[tattoo dave]

Sweet! Nice work.

Tattoo Dave

[BowEd]

Yep Kentucky coffee tree.It's got sapwood like osage,black locust,and mulberry.No I've not stained it any.Thinking of putting a red rat snake on this one.The pics are'nt really revealing the amount of color of the heat treatment I gave it.When one of these natural type deflex sticks come around they're fun to make and shoot nice.KCT is .60 density according to the book.I hav'nt done a density test on it myself but think from working with it that's about right.Not much left to do on it but to make a shooter.What I want to do is tiller it out to at least 29"or more.Hopefully it'll keep half the heat treatment which should leave me with around 1" to 1.5" set back.We'll see.

[loon]

Niice. Reflex deflex lever bow sounds great

[bow101]

Looks good Bead.  By the way what logs are your house built from.  These neck of the woods they use mostly pine.

[TimPotter]

Really pretty wood and killer profile on that bow.

[BowEd]

Thanks fellas but I have some doubts about my plans for this bow,but don't know till I try.See how well the heat treatment took.I'm still letting it rehydrate.Hopefully it'll keep half the heat treatment.I'll be tickled pink with that.
The house I'm in was just sided with spruce siding from Menards.Stained the siding.A log cabin kit plan asked for about 20,000.00 extra dollars,so went with a stick frame but with 2"X6" walls.An open type design with hardly no inside doors like a log cabin.All wood heat.Stove upstairs and downstairs in line on top of each other.Living the dream as they say.

[jandersson]

Looking good Beadman! How do you like KCT for bow wood? City has marked one for cut down a block away and I might see if I can get a piece of it.

[BowEd]

It's not osage that's for sure,but does make a decent bow.Seems like it just does'nt have  the strength you know.I've never seen myself what heat treatment will do for it so I got some hopes up about that.Like most white woods it's compression weak or tension strong I'm assuming.Maybe a weaker brother of hickory or like elm but not as elastic as elm.I'll comment on it in a while after I make a bow from it.There's many bows out there in the 50# range.I know it's about as dry as I can get it.Around 7% but still took more soft set pulling it to just 16" than I thought it should before heat treatment of belly.Maybe chose wrong design for it.Have you made any bows from it?

[jandersson]

No, all I've done is a hickory, two red oak board bows and now the ash sapling. Let us know how it ends up Mr.

[BowEd]

Ok.If you get the chance I'd get that wood.

[BowEd]

Well I had just enough wood to make a bow out of this to my liking.I had floor tillered this wood close enough to keep some of he heat treating pink color on the belly while adusting my positive tiller.Only took .25 ounces of wood off of limbs after heat treatment.The heat treatment gave it about 5 to 6 pounds more draw weight.It's now 17.85 ounces.It took about the set I figured it would.Still holds about 1and 3/8" set back of tips.Tillerd it to 54#@29" or  52#@28" and quit.It's got 10" levers.It shoots pretty decent.No hand shock.Shooting it in in this weather will take a while.It's 0 degrees this morning.Don't like any wind either so I can watch my arrow flight.Like to get 200 arrows through it before finishing.I'll get some finished up pics on it after it's shot in.Right now I don't believe I'll put anything on it but maybe a horn or bone arrow strike plate.Pretty much just leave it bare bones.No staining no leather handle.

[George Tsoukalas]

Looks good!  Enjoy. Jawge

[BowEd]

Thanks George.The wood has a few cool red streaks on the back along with some intermittent cambium and the belly still has a pink hew to it from the heat treatment.It responded to the heat treatment pretty good.Pretty wood really.Glad it held up.It's working limbs are 1.5" wide.The levers start out at 5/8" wide go 10.5" to 7/16" tips.Took 1/4 ounce of wood off each lever tillering it.All in all pretty good bow wood I'd say.Believe it could even stand a more stressful design.Shorter bows 64" to 60" I'd make the limbs 2" wide to start with and go from there.I'd keep the limbs rectangular and flat on both sides for a flat bow.Hav'nt made a D section limb bow from it yet so I can't comment on that.