Hawthorn Bow

[Sidewinder]

Marc, I think you just gave me an idea on handing anyone my bow or a bow I made. I'm gonna hand it to them with a disclaimer( don't hold a t full draw if you don't mind)  and ask them their draw length to make sure it isn't too much further from mine ( especially if they are noticably bigger) . I cringe when you were telling the story.

Nice work on the bow too but then again we have come to expect that from you .    Danny

[Asiertxu]

Hey Mark!!
Your job is allways inspiring but, this time, is one o these moments when you REALLY value that a well made selfbow out of these "forgotten" species such as "Hawthorn" ,performs AMAZINGLY WELL!!... ....
Hopefully we have (In the Basque Country) A LOT of EXCELLENT Hawthorns for all types of bows!!..
Allthough, I have to try it for now.
So far only made a "Black Hawthorn" (Prunus Spinosa) shortie that I have to post soon and have a lower limb (when unbraced) very like yours!!...not as reflexed but preety like that from you mate!!
It also returns to shape after have been shoot in for several times, in a similar way that you´ve descrived before.

Thanks for share Mark!!

Cheers...

Asier.   

[Marc St Louis]

Thank you guys. It's for sure that I will be keeping my eyes open for another suitable stave of this species of wood

[david w.]

wow that is gorgeaus

[Marc St Louis]

Thanks David

Looks like my site is down though. I'll just upload the pictures here



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[triton]

Hi, new to this site, found it while googling for hawthorn bows and I'm glad I did.  that's a very nice bow Marc.
I've just cropped a couple of staves of hawthorn.  one had been pushed over by beef so I had the best piece over where it bifurcated.  it's about 6 inch thick and bent like a recurve, should make iteresting tiller work.  got another branch yesterday around 4" thick, straight as a die and has a lot of forward set.

you may think it difficult to find good hawthorn your side of the atlantic but most of ours is cut into farily low hedges.  I only managed to stumble on the last piece while looking for a good holly tree.

anyway, this made interesting reading for me.  thanks again.

[DCM]

Nice as usual Marc.  I may see if I have hawthorn in the midsouth.  Not one I'm familiar with.  You handled the asym reflex admirably.  High hassle factor in my experience, but that can be the fun of it sometimes.

[Ryano]

Here's a hawthorne bow I made last a couple months ago. http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,7884.0.html
 It seems to be great bow wood. One of the better white woods for sure.

[Keenan]

Very nicely done Mark. I love seeing people take on challenges to see what is possible especially with wood that is not the norm. That has some real nice character and you did great on the tiller and string alignment. Congratulations,  Keenan

[salad days]

Very nice bow Marc. When I show someone one of my bows I never brace it. I'm surrounded by compound shooters and alot of them draw 29 or 30 inches. I tiller all mine to 28 and am too nervous about them. Also, one time when a guy I work with handed his buddy his vintage Bear recurve that he hunts with all the time, the dude drew it right back and dry fired it. I thought my work buddy was gonna have a stroke. The guy that did it was a bow hunter and should have known better, now I know better to keep the string off when showing my off my work.

[Papa Matt]

Brothers, listen to this!---

I've learned to NEVER hand a strung bow to anyone that I don't KNOW can handle it properly. On More than one occasion, I've done it and the first thing they do is pull it back and like some have said here--dry fire it. But that's not even the best part.

I've ALSO learned to never hand ANY of my bows (STRUNG OR NOT) to anyone that I don't KNOW can handle it properly. I have handed UNSTRUNG bows to people before thinking surely to God they won't try to pull back a limp string that is just loosely wrapped around the wood--AND THEY DID!!!  This has happened more than once and I said NO MORE.

I've actually known ADULTS SOOOOOO uneducated about bows that they think a bow functions by the string stretching!!!!! So they just grab it and pull on it no matter where it is or if it's strung or not. My ex-wife was such a dumb $#@&! that she actually made fun of me when I first started making bows because according to her I was doing it wrong. She claimed that the wood shouldn't bend and that I needed to find a string that stretched more because how can it fire an arrow if the string doesn't stretch. When I tried to educate her SHE ACTUALLY ARGUED WITH ME. Of course the moron is long gone but it just goes to warn you, there are some super idiots out there. I won't be handing my bow to anyone unless I am for sure they know what's going on.

~~Papa Matt

[cracker]

Very nice bow makes me want to grab up a snakey piece of something or other.
Ronnie

[Marc St Louis]

Thanks guys.  I built this bow last year so I didn't expect it to surface again.

I've had people pick uip my bows and not even bother with the string.  They just grab the limbs and yank on them and it doesn't matter if it's backwards or not.  My wife brought her little Yew bow I made her a couple years ago to a pow wow and this guy grabbed it and started to bend it backwards without even bothering to ask her if he could touch it.  She doesn't bring her bow to events anymore

[Papa Matt]

Man that makes me mad. I'd of let that guy know right there in front of everybody that he was a dumb%$#!.

[druid]

This excellent bow was posted much earlier than I registered here. What to say except: great!!!
One question for Marc: sometimes I work with similar character bows like this one. On unbraced pic this bow has one limb highly reflexed than other. That difference is less visible on brace and full draw. Do you often do like this Marc? Are both limbs equaly strained? I always got problems understanding working of different limbs and bows like this are such a treasure for learning skillfull tillering.
Best regards Marc!