First Birch Bow.

[loefflerchuck]

I would like to try almost every wood and design in my lifetime. I have never made a birch bow until now. We have water birch that grows wild around here and some other species planted in peoples yards. This stave I picked up in a hardwoods store. I got a shaft maker a while back and that lead me to start buying lumber from a supplier. They are really good about letting you sift through the stock. Basically a board good for shafts is also good for bows. I found a piece of birch(dont know what kind). with hourglass grain on the face. Brought it home and used half of it for arrow shafts and cut off a 2" stave from the best part. 15 minutes with a draw knife and I had a single ring back. I went for a very simple design to just see how birch is. I have always heard birch was a okay bow wood. Nothing special. Because of that I am quite happy with how the bow turned out. Overall a pleasant shooting bow.
 
 62 inch long. It has a 41 pound draw at 27". The handle and tips have overlays of red bloodwood and yellow canary wood over. The bow is finished with 5 applications of tung oil. The string is 10 strand B-50 endless.
 I tested this bow with the arrow in the photos. The arrow is poplar wood with 1/2" high wild turkey feathers 5" long. The arrow weighs 441 grains(more than 10GPP) and has a 46 pound spine. I shot 10 times through a chronograph. Took away the fastest and slowest speed and averaged the other 8 shots. That was 164.3 FPS.

I spent most of the first 17 years of my life on Birch Street in Denver. That is enough reason to make this bow.

[loefflerchuck]

more

[loefflerchuck]

full draw

[Mo_coon-catcher]

Good looking bow and sounds like good speed numbers to me! And good looking design. With that example, I’d say that birch is a good bow wood. Did you heat treat or induce any reflex into the board after getting a ring chased?

Kyle

[loefflerchuck]

Kyle, I did nothing special to this bow. The stave was very flat, so did not induce reflex. I kind of wanted a pure birch bow. No heat treating, no stain, just simple.

[bjrogg]

Nice bow Chuck, kinda like going home.
Bjrogg

[Aaron H]

Lovely shape

[willie]

nice looking for sure, and some respectable speed. I like the design you chose Chuck.

Mo, Yellow birch often milled/supplied for the commercial hardwood market. I have not tried too much in way of heat treating or bending with our local white birch variety, as have heard about mixed results with some of the other lighter subspecies . 

[BowEd]

Good looking shooter from the board supplier Chuck with nice profile lines all around and an ambidextrious shooting handle to boot.Looks like the board may have come from a big tree with the nice flat back it's got.How are the arrow shafts from the board?

[ohma2]

Very nice clean and simple .like your choice of over and under lays to.

[Marc St Louis]

Very nice bow.  The wood looks like Yellow Birch

[upstatenybowyer]

I dig it man. 

Yellow birch is listed as having a higher SG than other birch species so maybe that's what you've got there. Yellow birch bark is very nice looking and makes a great backing.

[willie]

Marc

have you tried heat treating birch? and if so, were your results consistent?

[rps3]

That's a sweet bow.  I would be grabbing more boards from that supplier.

[loefflerchuck]

Thanks guys. I was thinking yellow birch as the wood looks a bit yellow, but had no idea.
Rsp, I have not gotten too many staves from lumber until I started looking for shaft wood. Now I think it is a great source. With a bit of searching I can find a $30-$40 board that I can turn into 4 staves with a single growth ring back. When they are down to stave form it is the same as a good split tree stave but a lot less expensive. I've gotten white oak, birch, ash, and hickory this way so far.
Ed, The shafts turned out nice from the wood too. I may make arrows to match this bow. Kind of cool having a bow and arrows all from the same piece of wood. The arrows I made for this Ishi bow were from this board. Ishi used birch during his time at the museum for some of his arrows.