Two summers ago a friend of mine bought some "bergahorn" staves from Matthias Wiltschko on a trip to Austria. He gave me one to try, but I had no idea what it was. I did some research and found it is a soft maple (acer pseudoplatanus)
Apparantly they use the stuff in Germany to make bows but I couldn't find much examples.
After reading the bowyers bible series a few years ago I always wanted to try one of the "andaman/holmegaard" bows they talk about in one of the volumes and I figured the extreme light soft maple would be the perfect stave to experiment.
For the people who did not read the bowyers bible, this design is a combination of a stretched out extra wide paddle bow and a mollegabet.
I sketched a rough design on the stave and started the profile. This bergahorn is so soft you go throug it with a sharp drawknife like butter!
After floortillering I noticed the inner limbs got real thin at the edges. I wanted to keep the width there so started hollowing out to reduce weight but keep the width.
Finished the tiller at 48@28 and started shoooting it in. The mass of this big bow is extremely low! It looks reallly big but is so light in the hand. It shoots real smooth too, low mass works well for low handshock I guess.
Added some stain and serving wrap to dress the white wood up a bit.
Not a common style but this bow was a lot of fun to make!
Wood: acer pseudoplatanus
Draw weight: 48@28
Length: 66"
Max width: 3"
String: 6 strand 8125g
Pics
