New to the Forum

[IDTrapper]

Hello everyone, my name is Greg and I'm from Northern Idaho.  I've been hunting with a compound bow for 10 years, and after purchasing and reading the TBB set, I sold the compound and and have started work on several wooden bows.  Nothing finished, just have 2 yew staves cut down to rough shape, two birch staves cut down, and a handful of vine maple quarters.  They are all currently drying, my hope is to be working with the birch (which will be rawhide backed) within a couple of weeks.  I made several stick bows that I promptly broke.  One question.  My vine maple is pretty twisted, when I split the quarter staves each one has a minimum of a half twist in it.  I watched a couple videos on YouTube and guys were just bandsawing the maple into shape, and without splitting it were basically ignoring the twist in the grain.  Should I ignore it as well? Just "cut" the twist out of the belly, and call it good? Just seems like once you start tillering that twist would show up again.  I hope someone can help!  The birch is straight and really nice looking, so I'm at hopeful!  Thank you and I look forward to talking with everyone! 

[upstatenybowyer]

Never worked with vinemaple, but in my experience there is no ignoring twist. The only way I know to deal with it is to use heat to remove it.

Welcome to the forum! 

[osage outlaw]

Welcome Trapper!  You have come to the right place to get help with making self bows.  Do not cut the twist out of your staves.  You will be violating the grain that goes down the length of the wood and increase the chance of breaking the bow.  You can try a heat gun or steam it to remove the twist.  Post some pictures and ask questions.  You will get some great advice on here. 

[selfbow joe]

Welcome to the PA. This is a good sight to help you with your selfbow and other stuff. Like Clint said post pictures and ask questions or look back at some of the old post.

[bjrogg]

Welcome to PA Idtrapper. Good Luck with your honorable quest to take off the training wheels and hunt with a real bow. It will certainly be a adventure you can be proud of. I have no vine maple and from what I can see it looks a bit tricky for beginners maybe even experienced, but don't let that stop you. If you go to the "How to and Build Along" section then go to page two. There is a very good build along by Gordon on vine maple. This is a fantastic site, lots of really good bowyers on here. Sometimes your going to get a lot of different answers but that doesn't mean there wrong. You just have to evaluate them and see what works for you. 
Bjrogg

[mullet]

You can get away with it with most vine maple. I've made a few vine maple bows that were sawed into shape, even right through large knots, with no problems.

[aaron]

I have worked a lot of vine maple. Some staves have natural twist, others don't. I would advise to look for a stave without twist, rather than trying to correct a twisted one. You can't generally tell by looking at it. I'd bet that trees from the same area would be more likely the same, so when you find a non-twisted one- harvest others from the same area. VM is so full of character, that searching out an useable stave is hard- I tend to find one good one for every 100, or about one an hour tops.

[BowEd]

Welcome to the PA forum IDTrapper,and good luck with your bows.

[trail walker]

Hi trapper, welcome yo the PA community! This is the right place to come if you need advice for bows, arrows, or whatever. There are some bow building veterans on this sight that are wiling and ready to answer questions you have got. Hope you'll post some pics of the bows, i would love to see them. I have been lurking in the shadows of this forum for like 6-8 months now and finally shaped my first stave today. . Like i said, if there is anything i have observed, it is that all these guys are willing to dish out advice  and encouragement. They have kept me from a few train wrecks anyway.

[IDTrapper]

Thank you all for the warm welcome!  I don't have pictures of any of my roughed out bows yet, but I will try to take some good ones to post.  I will keep everyone updated, especially on the birch bow since its my first "non stick" bow.  Building a gizmo today, and hopefully next week a couple staves will be dry enough to work on!  Does anyone know of any Bowyers in the northern Idaho area? 

So far all my vine maple is twisted.  I am going to change areas and try to find a few that might be more straight grained.  I will keep all the twisted ones until I have a little more experience under my belt.   Thanks again for all the support, this seems like a very friendly place!