English longbow Purpleheart selfbow "D" section

[Heritage Longbows]

I just made a Traditional English longbow, Purpleheart selfbow "D" section.
Has anyone else on here made one?
I see in the Bowyers bible it says it doesn't make a good bow wood but I don't believe that.
I have used it for laminated English longbows for the belly laminate in the past without any problems and have been waiting for the right piece of wood to try a "D" section selfbow with it.
I have also made Ipe self bows and made english longbows backed with Ipe and this works also.

Its 36#@28"
Bone arrow pass
Buffalo horn nocks

Thanks

[gfugal]

You can make a good bow out of any wood as long as you design it right. How easy it is to do and whether you maximize efficiency will depend on the material. Unless you're going for flight records then the efficiency isn't as big of a deal, and as long as you know how to accommodate for "inferior woods" the difficulty factor will go away too.

[willie]

I have made a few similar designs from woods not generally considered to be the best species for bows, or at least not considered the best for bows as far as it's tension qualities are concerned. Never heard much recommendation for ipe on anything except the belly side, but it seems to work out for you. A lot of preferences on wood are formed  from failures, and many of those failures might well be attributed to factors beyond the bowyers control and more related to the selection, logging, drying and milling of the timber, rather than the species per se.


The purpleheart bow is begging for a few more more pics

[Badger]

  I have made a lot of purple heart bows. I quit using it because of its high tendency to chrysal. Some specimens are more forgiving than others while some are so bad they chrysal at the first flex. Out of maybe 30 bows that were either self or purple heart as a belly lam I think I had about 4 I would consider successful. I had a lot of it laying around for a couple of years so didn't mind wasting it.

[Hamish]

My experience with purpleheart for self bows has been like badgers(though I only tried 4 staves rather than 30). They were around 1&3/8" wide and flat(though faceted in the Torges style, but not a true elb)bellies, bend through the handle, around 66" btn.
Very straight grained pieces, well tillered but most blew in tension, near or at full draw. Another 4" of length and they probably would have been safe, but I only had 67 or 68" lengths at the time. I don't think any of mine chrysalled though I was aware it was very possible. If I was to have another go I would use longer wood, and maybe a thin hickory backing. PH is just too expensive down here in Australia to muck around with. I mainly use it as a core lam, where a little bit goes a long way.

I do remember an article perhaps from the defunct  Instinctive Archer magazine, or an old issue of PA a guy in the 1940's who made a purpleheart self elb, around the 40lbs mark.

[PatM]

If a bow is long and only pulling sub 40 at 28" you're not exactly testing the material to the max.

[willie]

.....you're not exactly testing the material to the max.

That could well be true, but what makes you think Lee is designing to "the max"?

[PatM]

.....you're not exactly testing the material to the max.

That could well be true, but what makes you think Lee is designing to "the max"?

I  don't.

[mikekeswick]

If a bow is long and only pulling sub 40 at 28" you're not exactly testing the material to the max.

How do you know it isn't 3/4 inch wide?
Anyway I suspect he IS on the edge of what it can do.
I made a few hickory backed elbs out of it a good few years ago. It will make a bow but isn't exactly ideal. Better to use ash or maple as a backing. Ipe backings aren't a good idea though!

[Limbit]

Like mentioned: trees vary a lot one to the next. My purpleheart experience has all been frustrating, but I have seen several examples of bows (including your's now!) of it being used from good pieces of wood. Ipe is sort of the same for me. It seems to vary a whole lot between pieces. Some exceptional, some a total waste of time. It's hard to know which will be which. Unfortunately, when a wood has serious compression issues (like purpleheart), it is more difficult to deal with than one that simply needs a backing to make it more usable (like Ipe). It seems to make a great core wood and accents just about any wood it is paired with.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Make them long enough and light enough and you can make almost any wood into a bow. 

[gfugal]

Pearl I would also add wide enough. Remember Tim backers 3+ inch pine bow? Haha. Those three variables are the manipulative variables that determine if a bow will break or not. Length, thickness, and width. The thickness and width will determine how heavy it is. Thinner and narrower is lighter, wider and thicker is heavier. I'll also add that it's length and thickness will determine how far it can be drawn. Longer and thinner means it can be drawn further, and vise versa.