This bow came from a straight 58" hackberry stave that had been cut in 2018. Never having worked with hackberry I decided to try something else I had never attempted... a static recurve. The stave was 1 3/4' wide so I wanted to try and keep width reduction to a minimum. Every bow I learn something new and this was no exception.
The first recurve cracked so I decided to soak the other tip before boiling and it worked out great. Lesson 1 (when doing a sharp bend soak the wood at least overnight to facilitate a good bend with no fracture). After rasping through the crack I Figured it was best to strengthen the wood with a belly overlay. Thanks to Pat B for his advice on the overlay process. I wound up using maple mainly because that's what I had on hand.
The bow was heat treated twice during tillering and I used dry heat for tip and handle alignment. After shooting the bow a little I was happy with the way the bow performed so I decided to dress it up a little. I had a small pair of sturgeon skins and figured black aniline dye may help cover up the scorched belly from the heat treating. I always liked the way thread wraps look so I I did some with nylon serving thread. Laying out the sturgeon skin I slightly miscalculated the width. This skins were narrow and the width would fit but the scutes wouldn't be centered. I decided to go with it anyway since my bow back was prepped and already sized with hide glue. Lesson 2 (when working with sturgeon skins pay better attention to the pattern of the scutes). This was my first time using sturgeon as a backing and I can say that it reminds me more of rawhide than a snakeskin. I like a matte finish on my bows for hunting. I decided to try pure tung oil as bownarrer recommended. It's a little more timely on the finish end but it was easy to apply and gave me the finish I was looking for. It also really made the grain pop with the aniline dye. Lesson 3 (pure tung oil makes for a great looking matte finish). I made some tung/mineral/beeswax mixture as a top coat to apply and buff off after the tung oil fully cures.
Overall, I'm quite impressed with hackberry. It's easy to work with, very light in physical weight and performs well. The bow has a bulbous style handle with virtually no shock, is pretty short and will be perfect for deer hunting this fall.
Thanks for looking.
Specs: Asymmetrical 58" NTN 47#@26" 1 3/4 wide at fades tapered to 7/16" tips Red heart tip overlays Maple belly overlays
Dyed elk leather handle wrap with kangaroo lace Inlaid beavertail strike plate (left 1/32" proud) Sturgeon skin backing
6 strand 452X string 7 coats pure tung oil finish
Static Hackberry by
Steve Woodruff, on Flickr
Static Hackberry by
Steve Woodruff, on Flickr
Static Hackberry by
Steve Woodruff, on Flickr
Static Hackberry by
Steve Woodruff, on Flickr
