Hello all at Primitive Archer, this is the first bow I have posted after years of taking inspiration from so many beautifully and we'll engineered bows. Thank you all.
As I have been trying many different woods to make my bows Field Maple was on my list. The stave from which this bow was made came from the gnarly ancient hedgerow near to were I live in Devon England.
Having spent a long time looking I found a slightly re flexed branch suitable. As the wood was so hard, the stave short for my height and highly crowned I felt this was a good candidate for my first attempt at backing. Having no sinew i looked around the farm for an alternative backing, amongst the junk there was a role of old flax baler twine.
Reading in the TBB that Flax was 7 times as strong in tension and half as light as wood I thought I would give it a shot. After combing out the fibers I started a hunt for adhesive in the end I boiled up off cuts of squire raw hide I had left over from making a hat, turns out it makes good sticky stuff.
After many hours and 3 layers of fibers I finished the tiller and built up tips with more rawhide and bound with red cherry bark. The riser was finished with the skin from the shin of a flow deer more cherry bark and leather thong. Struggling with a bit of stacking possibly due to the Flax, the hard bend resistant wood or the length? I settled for 40# @ 28" one inch off what I had hoped for.
The bow draws sweet and has good cast but above all it feels safe due to the backing. A good lav er of hard wax has kept the fibers from lifting in places. I want to experiment further with this type of baking next time I will add a final layer made up of straps of cherry bark to further secure the fibers and defend the glue from moisture.
