A great ?? serviceberry stave

[bambam]

Have never built a selfbow, first board bow is 2/3 done and looking good. Found this today. It is 7 ft tall 1.75 in. bottom and 1.25 in. at top. The bark indicates it has a straight grain and is almost perfectly straight except for this in the middle. Thinking this crooked bit could be the handle The wood is the same color all the way through. Glued up the ends and plan to stand it a basement corner till next spring. By then hope to have a plan for it. Comments for the rookie please.

[Zion]

Nice. I would be cool to shape the handle like a gullwing bow, might call for a highly stressed design tho.

[Accipiter]

I think the handle part should be workable, and look awesome to boot!  Serviceberry is a good dense wood, but even pieces that looks straight seem to have some twist, at least for me. you could try splitting it and roughing it out if you want it to dry faster, I've had really good luck with that. If you want to maintain thickness for the handle, try splitting it from both ends and sawing in to the pith at the fades on either side of the handle. the splits will hit the saw cut and stop, and then you can shape the handle however you want. With ocean spray (not sure how serviceberry will react) I've had awesome results just taking off 1/4" or so from the belly side of the handle, and sawing a shallow line along the center, which splits right to the pith as it dries. No harm done to the back and you get to keep your handle an inch thick or more! I'm fairly new at this myself, but thats what i would do with a 7' serviceberry stave,  good luck!

[Jim Davis]

serviceberry chrysals easily.  Leave the stave longish--twice the intended draw length plus 30 percent or more. Don't flatten the back and keep all the width you can.

It's  pretty good wood, but a hinge will wrinkle in the blink of an eye.

I'd band saw the belly side to about 3/4"  thick, tie  the limbs to a board or caul and let it dry.  You don't need to protect the back with paint or shellac because the wood will dry without cracking--if you thinned the limbs.

I have only made three Serviceberry bows and because I made them  too narrow or short, they all developed fatal chrysals.

Jim  Davis