laburnum bow, 42 lbs @ 27 "

[Hamish]

Fantastic work. I really like your interpretation of a continental longbow, beautiful.

 It looks like a conventional rounded belly cross section, like an ELB?  I think examples of Swiss bows from Lausanne Abbey had a changing cross section along the length of the limbs. Pretty complicated stylistically, not sure how much improvement if any, it gives, though. There was a Swiss bowyer, Blaise Fontenaz (not sure about spelling) making replicas of these bows.


Not a great deal of information easily found about these bows, especially in English.

[Badger]

   Beautiful bow! One of my all time favorites. You should flight shoot it.

[Del the cat]

Gorgeous bow
Del

[BetterTrees]

That's a beautiful bow!
I found a 4" trunk of laburnum when I was in Seattle. I've been thinking about what to do with it for the last four months.
It was the look of the heartwood that made me decide to snag it. Once I did some research I found that it is a very reputable bow wood.
The company I was working for called it "golden chain tree", which is probably standard for ornamental plantings to be labeled with.
I read somewhere that the sapwood isn't worth keeping on it. I'm glad to see otherwise. The contrast is great.

[George Tsoukalas]

Very nicely done! Tiller looks great. You forsook the picture perfect post tiller for the tiller the stave needed. Impressive! Jawge

[lonbow]

Hope you had a Merry Christmas!

Thank you all for this positive feedback! I really feel glad you like it!

There are certainly several variations of this bow style. I've seen bows that are between 63 and 74 inches long. Some bows have less and some have more setback in the grip. The length and the degree of the re curves can also vary. As you said, the most striking feature of some bows is the pentagonal cross section of the limbs with decorative grooves. I think that both the rounded and pentagonal style shoot about the same.

I would love to flight shoot this bow, but I unfortunately can't because I made it for a customer. But I'm generally really interested in starting flight shooting   

The sapwood of laburnum or the golden chain tree can be extremely tough, but it can also be brittle, as it's not very rot resistant. The best sapwood I've seen is of a yellowish colour and white grayish sapwood seems also to be very good. But I've seen two laburnum bows with grey brownish sapwood that were broken straight across the back. So I would definitely remove the sapwood in those cases and make the bow a bit wider for safety. The heartwood is also good in tension, but not as good as intact sapwood.

lonbow

[M2A]

Thats a lot of reflex on that finished bow. Looks awesome. I'm bet the customer is pretty pleaed with that one.
Mike   

[rps3]

Wow!  Love the bow along with the bit of information added. That would be hard to send off.