Thanks Phil, I plan on writing a note at the end about my thoughts and findings on syringa.
Here are some pics of the skin with a few coats of finish. I'm just using spray on polyeurothane on these. With the bone flake on the skins it makes it hard to do true oils or other things without getting the cloth particles caught in the bone flake. This is just a few coats with more to come. Keenan
just a thought Keenan on syringa...we must remember that you took some of the most challenging staves to do your build-a-long and the other bow from. just as in other woods, the cleaner and least challenging the stave, the better the bow. we have found out that the nodes can be a problem area in that they can have imperfections or hollow spots which can cause splinters.
but overall the wood lends itself to be a very good bow-wood. we talked about sinew backing which I believe could result in a extremely fast bow. my hats off to you for your daring
in attempting to create a bow from such a challenging piece of wood, especially since so little was known about its quality. we have to do more experiments to find out what type of bow this wood is best suited for. just like osage makes a poor ELB, this wood may lend itself to more of a flatbow style. you did an outstanding job on both of the bows I saw and I think the other readers feel the same. keep up the good work.
