Black Walnut?

[Joec123able]

I've done a few of black walnut. Kind of a spongy feeling bow wood. Here's one all heartwood. I prefer to take the sap wood off personally.

[Josh B]

It's pretty much been said already .  Any combination of sapwood  heartwood is fine. Keep it wide and the belly flat.  Go slow with the tiller and exercise the limbs a lot while tillering.  Josh

[Onebowonder]

Black Walnut has been my nemesis bow wood.  I've attempted 5 times and failed each time.  The sixth time I finally got one made, ...but it has since chrysaled up a good bit (after 8 months of shooting reliably) and has taken set poorly.  Still shoots nice for plinking at a target in the back yard, but I'm afraid number six will also eventually be a bust!    It is really too bad because I have access to a lot of the stuff that is really quite pretty.

What has been said about keeping it  W I D E  and flat on the belly is really good advice.  You might also try trapping the back of the limb some as well, especially if you are doing a sap wood bow.

OneBow

[Springbuck]

Onebow, can I share a thought about this?   The couple times I worked BW, I took Bakers advice about being elastic for it's mass, and overstrained it.  Got multiple little compressions and some set. 

Now, in light of what Joec123able said, in his post, what I THINK really happened is that the wood actually feels elastic.  He said "spongy" but I remember it bending easily and snapping back easily, so I'm thinking ELASTIC, but not very STIFF.

So, because it wasn't stiff, I built them too thick, even though I thought I was wide enough, and mid to late tillering, they got beat up.  Next time, I'm leaving them silly wide and trust how light the wood is to keep the tip weight under controll.

Keep in mind, though, that I think too much.....

[BSV]

Gun Doc, when you say wide ....13/4 or so?? Burt

[Josh B]

I usually go 2" wide at the fades for a hunting weight bow.  1 3/4" is good to about 35-40 lbs. .  That's with my local walnut which is slower growing and quite dense compared to walnut I've tried from out further east.  I think that may be a lot of the problem that people have with walnut.  It seems that the further north and west, the denser the walnut.  That's based on very limited samples of course.  Josh