Cherry Recurve Autopsy

[boomhowzer]

What do you guys think went wrong here? Wood is wild cherry. Limbs were 2" wide. Broke at 35# @ 23".

[HH~]

For one,  ya only got a sliver of wood with a 90 degree hook. Takes a little more wood to support that. If it was Hedge it may have survived. Dint need much OO to make a bow. Cherry well ya know. Looks like it went where you heated or steamed it? Ya let it rehydrate before pulling on it?

HH~

[RyanY]

Something about the limbs looks very irregular. Like the wood removal didn’t create a rectangular cross section. The pics are a little close up and don’t show very well where the break occurred. A tiller pic would help. Doesn’t sound unreasonable being 2” wide but it was probably getting close to its limit with those massive recurves. What was the length of the bow?

[SLIMBOB]

That’s the nature of the beast. The stuff will break your heart, and then a few teeth. (That could be a rap song).

[BowEd]

By looking at the type of break it is I would say there was a longitudal grain run out just below your recurved hook.

[bownarra]

Cherry is brittle in tension and your recurves are huge! Enough said

[bassman211]

I call it hurt wood.

[BowEd]

I did'nt want to mention it but that's a bit extreme for cherry.Black cherry that is.

[boomhowzer]

Thanks guys.

I wish the pictures were better. I'm still getting the hang of the documentation thing. The bow's measurements were 63" from tip to tip, 66" measured down the recurves, I'm not sure which measurement is more commonly used. It was 1/2" square at the tips and I did allow the wood to return to equilibrium moisture after the bends.

I think the coroner's report will read something like this: This bow was dead on arrival. The inexperienced craftsman failed to follow the longitudinal grain the length of the stave. He then bent super-massive recurves into the tips of the bow without understanding the brittle nature of the wood he was using or the thickness required to support such a large bend. When he began the tillering process, it exploded below the recurve, where the longitudinal grain ran off the edge. Tears were cried, teeth were gnashed, but the friendly people on the PA forum helped him get over his heart break by teaching him where he went wrong, using plenty of smile emoticons and light humor to soften the blow.

Thanks again. I will say that the short time this bow was on my tillering tree, I became quickly and inextricably in love with the way the string gently pulls off the tip of the recurve while the bow is being bent back. This will certainly not be my last attempt at a heavily recurved bow.

[SLIMBOB]

Get your hands on some Osage, Hickory, Elm, or Hackberry.  Good straight pieces without a lot of knots.  Your chances of success go up dramatically over a something as fickle as Cherry, especially if you want a recurve.  Good luck and keep plugging away at it.

[boomhowzer]

Thanks SLIM. I've got 5 more cherry staves. One of them looks pretty nice, but I'm not going to try and turn it into a recurve. My goal is to hunt this fall with equipment that comes from our land. We have lots of Norway maple and wild cherry. There's also some white ash, but I'm hesitant to cut it down because its becoming something of an endangered species in these parts due to the emerald ash borer. I'm going to try to get comfortable with those woods, but yeah, I think my next recurve attempt will be a little more forgiving species...

[SLIMBOB]

That sounds like a good reason to persevere.  I will let Ed or someone who has actually completed a Wild Cherry give you specifics, but in general, go longish and no hooks.  Careful with any knots, and watch out for the hidden sap pockets.  I had a love affair with the idea of having a love affair with Black Cherry, 10 years back or so.  I was influenced by some of what Tim Baker wrote about it, and the engineering, technical data on it.  All true I suppose, but brittle as a candy cane in my experience.  It seems to lack the elasticity in tension that I am accustomed to.  Pushing just a little too far is just far enough to have the back explode.  It probably does not take much set, as has been observed, but only because the back lets go while the belly is putting it's pants on.  Good luck and keep us posted.  Wear protective glasses!

[Morgan]

That’s a shame brother. I have tried quite a few times to get on the recurve train and all failed to some extent, and I am using hackberry and elm as my victims. Just can’t get the hang of it. I would say that if you really want to complete a recurve, you are going to get it done, I imagine it would take a quite experienced hand and good stick of wood to get it done with cherry though. I think If I was wanting a successful cherry bow, I’d want every inch of it other than the tip sections doing work, and if I got a long lasting success, work from there on reducing working limb on the next one to see how far I could go.

[boomhowzer]

a love affair with the idea of having a love affair with Black Cherry

Well put, SLIM. The other half the reason I'm farting around with this stuff is how poetic Tim Baker was about it. I have high hopes for these staves though, because the tree was killed by a lightning strike! I just have to believe that puts some good jujus in the wood. And like Morgan suggested, my next try will be a long bow, bendy in the handle, and as wide as the stave will allow.

SLIM, you mentioned those sap pockets. I encountered a number of those while I was working the stave down. Most of them were only 1/16 - 1/8" thick, so I simply sanded them out. Whats the deal with those? Will they compromise the bow if they're not handled properly? And if so, whats the proper way to handle them?

[scp]

The current orthodoxy is that recurves are seldom faster than the straight bows and often slower (TBB4).  I have never used Cherry before, due to its fame for spectacular explosion; but I happened to get some decent Cherry boards. I would cut several bow blanks out of them. Then, I will turn them into long flat bows, around 72 inch long, 2 inch wide, and with straight and stiff tips,  at least 8 inch long, 3/4 wide, and 3/4 inch thick, at floor tillering. If they are all shootable, I might try to turn one into a recurve by cutting them to 64 inch long with slightly recureved tips, 4 to 6 inch long, 3/4 inch wide, and 3/4 inch thick. And I will probably stop there, unless I am willing to add backings on them.