Hello all, new member from Vermont

[vtbow]

Hello folks, I've never built a bow before, but my 9 year old daughter asked for an archery set for her birthday last week, and friends of the family gave her a plastiic bow. I'm an old wooden boatbuilder, and not keen on plastic. To help her learn I dug out an old Fred Bear Bearcat that I probably haven't shot since the 70's. Needless to say she seemed to be doing better than I was after about 15 minutes of practice!

Anyway, this all rekindled my interest in shooting, and I started thinking about making us both bows some day. I found this forum and started reading, and I'm already hooked. This is the kind of bow i want -- modern stuff leaves me cold.

I have 67 acres of woodland, and I built my own bandsaw mill from scratch -- built my house with that a dozen years ago. After reading here I started looking at what I have availble for wood. My woods are mostly hemlock, white pine, black (sweet) and yellow birch, red oak, ash, red and sugar maple, cherry, beech. I've never seen hickory here. I have occasional hop hornbeam, witch hazel, and elm. I do have two 80 foot elms I'm trying to protect by keeping the smaller elms near it cut down -- to keep the Dutch elm beetles far enough away. The disease tends to follow an "elm trail" of smaller seeded elms cast by the big tree, killing the small ones at about 20 -40 feet in height.

Anyway I now can see a use for the culls, and, waiting for my registration to come through tonight, I went out and cut one of the small ones with a straight trunk and twisted top stuck in the understory in a nearby hedgerow. I got a good 6 foot butt section about 6" diameter. Wondering what my next step is -- peeling or splitting -- and into how many sections?

Here's a pic:

[Tillstave]

Welcome Friend. You seem to have gotten into this gig the same way I did. I am an amateur wood worker and like using hand tools, so it seemed to be a natural fit for me. Remember this tid bit of advise: Keep one continuous growth ring on the back, then peel the belly till both ends bend evenly. The rest is just technique.

67 acres of woodland in Vermont is a great place to start from. Not too many folks out there that have that kind of resource  at hand. AS for types of wood; Beech is useless, as  well as pine, or hemlock. I made my first bow out of oak and it still preforms well. I've never really liked the look of oak, but it is strong. Ash would be a great place to start, just split it along a natural seem and get to work.

Tilstave

[vtbow]

Thanks Tillstave!

Yes, beech just doesn't seem to be good for much.

I'm going to guess that black birch isn't used for bows either because doing a search on birch here shows up nothing. Although, I guess birch is supposed to be very strong -- used in aircraft. I have lots of it and it is one of the straightest trees here with long sections with no branches. But I imagine if it was used in bows, there'd have been some mention of it.

Back to the elm I just cut ---would you split with wedges or just band saw this 6" (min.) dia. elm, and would it be into quarters .... or more pieces than that?

[Pat B]

VTBow, welcome to PA.  I think you'll love it here.
 Red oak, sugar maple, ash are proven bow woods. Of the birches, yellow is the strongest but black will also make a bow.
Your daughter might want to build her own bow. This could be a good Dad/Daughter project.  Maybe a Vermont Native style bow.

[vtbow]

Thank you, Pat! I probably will try sweet (black) birch some time then -- just to see. It is probably my most common hardwood tree here.

[Tillstave]

I think the Daddy/ Daughter project is a great idea. Mine, who is 8, loves to come out to the shop and tell me how we are going to have a bow business when she grows up. I don't have the heart to tell her that there isn't much in the way of customer base for stick bows, but it's fun anyway.

As for how to start a stave, I have done it both ways. In either case, I always split the log in two and go from there. Sawing can save some of the backache, if you have a bad lower back as I do, plus it allows you to save the inner heartwood, allowing two, or three bows per stave.

Read the Bowyers Bible, it illustrates this process pretty well. I follow it as close as possible.

TS

[vtbow]

Thanks Tillstave! I just started tillering a board bow for her -- started out as a bow for me, but a spot of bad grain meant I had to shorten the board to 54", and I have a 29" draw. I

I'm pretty close to final weight for her today -- it's 18# on 21" draw -- she'll need about 15# to draw comfortably.

I'm learning a lot here.