We cut down a fast grown Walnut tree at my brother's place end of January last year, it was about 30 years old and had borne fruit for several years... he cut it down 'cos it was overhanging the neighbours property and the leaves had fallen into his little garden pond and killed the fish. It was all sapwood! I got 3 staves out of it, all heavily reflexed, two with bark on and one from further into the tree which also had a big sideways bend.
I worked on that stave just to see what the wood was like (the rings were 1/2" thick in places!)... I went at it like a bull at a gate so as to have a quick try.
Steam bending took out the reflex, then I cut away some at the grip to allow it to bend sideways and steam bent it sideways. It has some ring violations running the length of the limbs due to how the stave was roughed out (still even got some slight saw marks across the back!)
I made a mess of roughing it out on the bandsaw and created a weak spot... which looked horrendous first time on the tiller at only 20#(first pic)
!
However after some shortening of the limbs and heat treating, I got it to target weight 40# @ 27" ... pic shows it at 28"
I was amazed... it's kept a hint of reflex and shoots fast and sweet... I have high hope for the better staves, which will have nice clean backs. I'd expected it to take set, chrysal or just be slow.
It's 61.5" ttt. 2 1/8" wide at the widest.
I've not bothered to finish it off at the moment... I'll see how it shoots through the chrono, then maybe finish it as a field shooting bow.
I did 8 videos showing progress from staves to finished bow, which are on my Youtube channel as a play list:-
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBz2tD9476KRuVA_Fkpzav-457zLavBU5 which shows how I recovered from that horrible starting point! Hopefully it will be useful for some newbies...
It was certainly interesting to play with something different.
Del
PS... In the full draw pic, the dark area near the right tip (from heat treating) creates a bit of an optical delusion
making it look weak/hinged
