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Author Topic: Ottawa Plum Bow  (Read 14582 times)

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Offline Marc St Louis

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Ottawa Plum Bow
« on: October 21, 2014, 09:42:20 pm »
No this is not an Ottawa bow but rather an RD bow made from Plum I cut in Ottawa.  My wife's family come from Ottawa and some 100 years ago they owned a quarry.  The quarry is still there, albeit a bit overgrown with trees and humans.  At some point in the past someone planted some Plum trees and they have spread.  They're not big trees and many are gnarly but some are a decent size.  I came across a decent one last Spring, decent in the sense that it was quite nice for the first 4' and then it turned nasty.  I came back home with a 6" log 4' long, which I split and sealed.  A couple weeks ago I thought I would take out a couple of the worse billets that I got out of it and splice and make an ALB out of them.  Didn't quite work out that way.  After cleaning them up a bit I realized that there was too much sapwood, more than 1/2" in some places, and I would have to make a 100# bow if I wanted to have any of the heartwood left in the bow.



I changed my mind and decided to make a backed RD bow for hunting instead.  I ripped about 1/4" of the sapwood off then finished prepping the surface with rasp and scraper.  I then glued the billets together and backed them with Maple.  The finished bow turned out nice and the color of the heartwood is quite attractive.  I originally glued some Bloodwood  nock overlays on the bow but I took it out to shoot it the other day and one of the overlays sheared right off, fortunately it didn't damage the bow, so I changed them to antler.  I can tell it is fast

The bow is 63" long overall with limbs 1 1/4" wide and it pulls 55# @ 28".  I glued in 3 1/2" of reflex and it kept just over 1" of that, it gradually creeps up to 2" after a couple hours.  Here's some pics









I started to break the sapwood I ripped off the back so that I could burn it in my stove but it was so darn hard to break that I ended up cutting it into pieces instead.  I think maybe next time I'll see if I can try and thin the sapwood instead.  Or I may rip a strip of the sapwood off, thin it and glue the strip back down.  I know the wood dry heat bends quite well so I may try a recurve as well.
« Last Edit: July 14, 2017, 08:53:26 am by Marc St Louis »
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Offline missilemaster

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2014, 10:31:08 pm »
Very nice as usual Marc. I'd like to try plumb one of these days.
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Offline Poggins

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2014, 10:46:17 pm »
Sweet looking bow Marc , I've been watching the sand plum thickets for some decent sized plum staves , haven't found any yet .
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Offline Pappy

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2014, 05:28:17 am »
Sweet bow,bet it is smooth and will spit and arrow.  :) The color combo looks very nice also as does the tiller.
   Pappy
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Offline Aaron H

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2014, 06:58:49 am »
Very cool, love the unbraced profile
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Offline Holten101

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2014, 07:03:41 am »
Masterpiece:-)

Is all that reflex glued in?. What glue do you use? and Do you think a bamboo backing could work as well as maple on plum?. Forgive my questions....but I have next to no experience with "laminated" bows, only ever made 5, and they all pulled out their glued in reflex.

Cheers
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Offline Aussie Yeoman

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2014, 07:05:30 am »
Nice bow Marc.

How much deflex did you glue the billets into to start with?

Were you able to diagnose the reason for the overlay shearing off?
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Offline PEARL DRUMS

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2014, 07:10:21 am »
Sweet bow Marc. Problem is, I told you I was a righty.....now your going to have to build me another one.
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Offline Marc St Louis

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2014, 08:21:49 am »
Thanks guys.  Plum is certainly top grade wood, very elastic.  I don't know if, like Osage, it has any moisture resistance though.  I'll certainly get more the next time I'm in Ottawa.

All the reflex is glued in and I used Urac for most of the gluing, a little bit of TB3 in the handle and the overlays.  The wood is dense, tough, and very hard so I would assume that Bamboo would work quite well as a backing.  The Maple backing is 1/8" thick with a slight thickness taper.  I also used a piece of the sapwood I ripped off for a power lam.

I don't measure the angle of deflex when I glue them together.  It wasn't a glue failure so I assumed the Bloodwood was just not up to the task.
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Offline lesken2011

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2014, 08:49:14 am »
Nice job, Marc...and I am a lefty in case you're interested. ;D
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Offline Blackcoyote

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2014, 09:03:39 am »
the unbraced profile says that bow is a screamer!  ;D looks great too!
 
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Offline burchett.donald

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2014, 09:15:19 am »
Marc, interesting story and a beautiful bow...Tiller is awesome 8)
                                                                                                                     Don
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Offline Marc St Louis

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #12 on: October 22, 2014, 09:40:54 am »
Thanks guys

I used to be able to do many things left handed when I was young and I recently started shooting lefty.  I still need to do a lot of practice before I become proficient but I like the change.  My shoulders have been giving me so much trouble lately that even the 55# is a bit of a pain to pull back

The land I harvested this small tree from is land that the Algonquins are negotiating for in their long awaited treaty settlement.  Makes it even more special to me
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Offline bubbles

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #13 on: October 22, 2014, 11:27:35 am »
Yay lefty bow! Amazing as usual. 
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Offline wizardgoat

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Re: Ottawa Plum Bow
« Reply #14 on: October 22, 2014, 03:45:24 pm »
Pretty bow Marc. This city is full of plum, just waiting for a dark rainy night....
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