Stepping back to punt

[hedgeapple]

nickf, that's why I"m going to do hickory as my next bow attempt--I won't have to chase rings.

Jawge, yes I do need to make some round edged scrapers.  That's on my list of things during before I begin my next ring chase.

[hickorydick]

Hedgeapple,
I bougt a locust stave as my first split stave. It looked great. Armed with all I'd read - and a scraper, I picked my ring and headed down after it. I hit some close knots. They misguided me and I scraped through my ring. Twice! Then I got a spokeshave. I have a groove going now. I shaved through 8 rings (The end of the stave I never made it to) and learned the feel - the crunchy vibration and sound and feel when you've just made it through a ring and into the crunchy and damp earlywood layer above the next ring. This became unmistakeable and I got to the stage (with a very fine spokeshave setting) where I can strip off the earlywood and cleanly reveal the new ring - and using a bright light to follow the ring and identify unscraped earlywood. Before this adeptness, I would carefully spokeshave into the earlywood and leave that as a layer. I would then go backand scrape it off and reveal my shiny ring.

I've never done this before and was anguished at my failed rings,  but there were still more rings I just never gave up. The best rings were very deep, but eventually, that's where I was and now ready to do it right. Don't give up on the locust. It's all a matter of feel. I ended up on the first of 3 beautiful rings and got a clean strong back.

Here's a pic of the rings before and after.

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[George Tsoukalas]

Around here in NH the locust trees grow fast so the rings are huge and easy to follow.  Seems that isn't the case in other parts of our country. Stick with it, everyone. Sometimes it takes awhile to get a bow. Not that I would know anything about that. LOL. Jawge

[smokeu]

Hey keep at it!! That BL is a bear for sure... I finally had to go down to a thick ring and sraped it out end to end with a case trapper pocket knife, the curved skinning blade worked well to get aroung groooves and knots. Prob not the best scraper but worked slow and had lesss room for error. I have tried several different techniques, just seems you have to find what works for you. I have worked on probabaly 3 or four staves now ( rejects of course ) for practice... I am just know fairly confident that I can really chase aring with some amount of accuracy. Its kinda funny because ive got some Hickory and Hophornbeam so I dont have to chase a ring and take a break for a bit. lol Good Luck to you and keep at it.

Mike

[DirtyDan]

I agree with Ryano about the dry locust. I have made several good bows out of 40 year old locust fence rails.  Chasing the ring was pretty easy.  On the other hand, I have made several good bows out of locust saplings by just taking off the bark.  But do not ask me whether the saplings were black or honey locust.  I do not know.  I might try a locust leaving the sapwood on and see what happens.

Dan

[hedgeapple]

Thanks everyone for your replies and encouragement.  Well, I got a hickory stave from hickoryswitch.  I decided to clean it up a bit.  About 2/3 through the "clean up" I realize that I had actually been chasing a ring.  WooHoo!  Completely by accident and no reason to chase a ring on hickory, but that's what I ended up doing.  It's on a long string no for tillering.  Hopefully, I'll have it braced by the end of the week.  The tips are moving about 3" at 40# right now.  I'm taking it slow on removing wood.  I'm actually sticking with the scraper for wood removal.  Slow, slow, slow.

As far as the BL goes, that stave is curing nicely.  I absolutely love the color of BL wood.  Sometime in the near future I want to build a bow BL bow with about an 1/8"  of light sapwood and the rest darker wood.  I thing that would be beautiful.  Although I have 8 or 10 BL staves, I might try that bow from a sappling and make a D-bow.  I've grown fond of the D-bow look.
Dave

[George Tsoukalas]

Don't forget to seal the back and ends with poly or she'll split quicker than you can say 'rings". Jawge

[smokeu]

I believe the cherokees actually left a portion of sapwood on the back of their bows made from BL.