Sweet gum bow inspired by Meare Heath

[TimPotter]

When I was a kid the 1st wood I ever tried was sweet gum. Lately I've been getting sort of nostalgic maybe it's because I'm over 50 now. Another thing I've always had a soft spot in my heart for it the Meare Heath bow, so what better way to wax nostalgic than to combine the two.





I hacked out the basic shape of the stave with a hatchet, keeping it a tad over 76"L incase of checking. Then worked to just outside of floor tiller. Coated the back and ends with acrylic sealer and clamped it down to season for close to a month. Outdoors in the sun and wind during the day and indoors under the couch at night next to the floor heater.





I did not cut the handle out but kept the stave full width to reduce twisting.



About 3 weeks latter I cut out the handle.





And had to clamp it back down as it began to propeller twist fairly quickly.



After another week of drying I cut in the nocks and began to tiller.



At present I am almost comfortable with the tiller. 75# at 31".





Now I'm going to slowly finish the tiller and shoot it in. Then I will stain it dark (faux hearwood yew) and put on raw hide bindings. And no I did not worry about making the handle a precise replica. It is Meare Heath inspired.  I will post more pics when it is finished showing a further draw with a few long 33" Neolithic style arrows from privet in the bargain.
Thank You for looking.   And have a great afternoon.

[TimPotter]

Forgot to show the belly at it's current state. Like I said it is still in it's rough stage.

[sapling bowyer]

Nice!

[paco664]

i like it...

[WillS]

I'm still convinced the handle on the original broke which is why it was discarded.  It's way too small for a sensible design. 

Looks ace Tim.  Can't remember if I've commented on your PP version but if not I have here! 

[TimPotter]

Thanks guys!

Yeah I agree about the handle as well. I'm also convinced the crisscross sinew and rawhide bands were for decoration. Think about it. You can't tiller anymore once the bands are glued on the belly so that would mean you knew you were done and that it was already working. Plus if you were adding them for protection sake you wouldn't then cut into the wood on the back while putting the rawhide on would you?

I shot about 100 arrows through it and at 1st my normal 55# spine arrows drawn 28" had the bow feeling like the tips needed to be clipped by 8 inches and Mollied. But then I shot my 65-70# spine arrows drawn 31" and it settled in nicely and penetrated very well in an old boogie-board set against a foam couch cushion. Trouble is I only have 2 arrows that long at that spine. The rest are for warbows which would have been crap out of this bow.
So going out now to build a fire and sand down the bow then make some arrows.

[bradsmith2010]

looking great,, some really heavy arrows will calm it down a bit,, some hardwood shafts,, hickory or maple would be nice,,
I have shot arrows as much as 1000 grains out of 70ish bows,,, and they would smooth the bow down quite a bit,,

[simson]

Now that's a looong flattie. Can't remember how long the original was. Nice heartwood strip in that wood.

[Chief RID]

Plenty of SG here. Looks pretty authentic to me.

[PlanB]

Looks great, Tim.

[Badger]

  Years ago my brother in law cut all the limbs off a sweet gum tree about 30 feet tall, he attached a rope to the top and pulled the tree over almost flat with the tractor and then cut the rope just to show me how flexable it was. He said that was the only tree he could do that with. I have always wanted to try it for a bow since then. How heavy is the wood compared to say hickory??

[TimPotter]

Thank you guys.

Badger it is lighter than hickory but pretty elastic. The reason I made bows out of it as a kid was we would climb to the top of saplings and then let our body weight bend the top back down to the ground before letting go. Never had one break. Plus my dad punished me once by making me split a seasoned cord of it with wedges and I would often have up to 3 wedges stuck in a log before it finally gave. To tell the truth I'm wondering about trying a heavy longbow out of it next. Oh and I forgot to add that I made two wood wedges from the end of the trunk this bow came from and used them to split 4 black locust logs, and they are still serviceable for further projects. Tough stuff.