coffee wood

[warpath]

hello everyone. i'm brand new to primitive archer, however i've been making bows and arrows for over 25 years. I've recently acquired a decent supply of Kentucky Coffeewood that is rediculously straight grained and i was going to plane some arrow shafts out of it. Does anyone have any experience making bows with this material? I almost completed a bamboo backed bow with it and it was looking good at 53#@28" when it busted throught the backing! If anyone has any advice it would be greatly appreciated. I saw that someone made a recurve selfbow with it at one time, but that was all I was able to find as far as making a bow with it

[gstoneberg]

Was this the one you saw?  http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,31172.0.html  It won Bow of the Month back in March.

George

[AJMag]

I'm still mystified my Timo's. I'm waiting for a kentucky coffee to get here and dry some.  http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,18322.msg254360/topicseen.html#msg254360

[warpath]

Gstoneberg- Yes. that is the only example of a coffewwood bow that i was able to find. The coffeewood that i have is straight grained enough to make one like that, i just wanted to back it for extra strength and longevity. Any suggestions?

[Buckeye Guy]

Welcome to PA
I Know almost nothing about Coffee wood !
Have fun !
Guy

[gstoneberg]

... i just wanted to back it for extra strength and longevity. Any suggestions?

I've never made a coffee wood bow, but as for backings I usually do rawhide if I'm just protecting the back or sinew if I'm trying a design that's pushing the limits of the wood.  Since you're using a board and have a nice flat surface you also have wood backings available, hickory is the obvious choice but there are others, including bamboo, hard maple, white oak  etc.

Good luck,
George

[Pat B]

Welcome to PA, WarPath.
  I've never worked Kentucky Coffee Tee either so I can't help with that but tell us your experiences when you are done.
  George give good advice for backings. For protection you could also use linen, silk or brown grocery bag paper. All of these backings and be added using simple carpenters glue(white or yellow).

[warpath]

George,
   How about red oak as a backing? I have so much of that it's insane. It's plenty wide enough to cut a few backing strips with almost perfectly straight grain. I've used it before on youth bows, but nothing heavier than 40#.

   Pat,

   Love the brown paper bag idea!! Gonna give that a try on some youth bows to test it out. Please keep the ideas coming guys.

   While I'm at it.... Anyone ever make a backed tiger maple longbow? I have about 45 board feet of that too. Made a bow with it and it came out at 45#@28". Shoots fairly well but still testing it out. Took almost no set after around 300 shots over 2 days.

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

Not the best wood I've ever used, but certainly a very capable bow wood. i would suggest no backing at all. especially if it is really straight grained. works great without a backing