First go with Black Locust

[jameswoodmot]

I’m in the U.K., Black locust is pretty rare. My parent live in France and I remember seeing a lot of it around. I asked my dad if he could keep he’s eye out for a piece, to which he told me he had just bought a dozen 7ft Locust fence posts! He brought me a couple last month.

I’ve never come across a wood that people have such polarised opinions about how it should be treated. Some say wide and thin or it will fret and others say narrow and thick or it will fret! I’m used to wide and thin so I’ll start there.

It had most of the sapwood sawn off, some checks in one end and a point on the other. The outer growth rings were about half the thickness of the deeper ones so I took about 5 rings of heart wood off. I’ve got three rings at the tips and two in the mid limb, about 5-6mm thick each (just under 1/4”). Tough stuff but chasing the early growth was very nice.

I made the mistake of leaving it on the radiator over night after roughing it out. It had more moisture in it than I though and it split pretty bad, luckily I had left plenty of spare material on and all the splits were in trim-able areas apart from a tiny bit in the riser that I’m not worried about.

I flipped the tips and took out the twist and deflex with dry heat, took ages! I’m really not much a fan of dry heat, next time I’ll use steam and set it with dry heat after. At least then I can do something useful when it’s heating instead of sitting there waving a heat gun around. Also, I can never be confident I’ve got it hot all the way through, my fear is that the belly will have taken the bend but not the back, and then as the belly is thinned the bend will pull out. Not a problem with steam.

Anyway. It’s 66” straight line tip to tip and 2” at the widest point.anything between 40 and 50lbs at 26” will be great. Last 5-6” will be static or close to.

Any input will be much appreciated!

[jameswoodmot]

It’s not quite a pyramid shape but not far off. It’s a bit Eiffel Tower ish from the outer third and almost parallel on the inner half. Started with 3” of reflex, lost 1/2” getting it to brace height. Not surprised at that, I usually lose a bit early on when the wood seems to “settle”. I really don’t want to loose much more though.
A bit of a pig to get it to brace but it’s there now. Going to make sure it’s dry before I continue

[Hamish]

Looking really good so far.

locust and osage are some of the worst timbers for checking if you have the back unsealed, and there is still plenty of moisture inside.

[jameswoodmot]

Looking really good so far.

locust and osage are some of the worst timbers for checking if you have the back unsealed, and there is still plenty of moisture inside.

Interestingly the checks were on the end grain of the handle and limbs as you’d expect but the rest we on the sides along one growth ring which was the “spare” growth ring on the belly. I was able to cut down to the next bit of early growth and get it all out. There were a few across the belly too but the back is clear. I was very lucky, serves me right for rushing drying it! (I’ll learn one of these days, just not this one)

[superdav95]

Ya so far so good.  It looks quite light in color for the bl I’ve seen here from folks.  I’ve not had to opportunity to work any bl. I’ll have to try and get some one of these days. 

[jameswoodmot]

Had the suspicion that it had some more moisture to loose even after the radiator and heat gun treatment. Been on the radiator again since yesterday evening and it’s dropped 5% of its weight. 736g to 6.98?

How does BL do with moisture in general? I assume not as good as Osage but better than white woods?

[M2A]

Looking real nice so far.
I never had a problem with a finished locust bow gaining set or losing noticeable cast from taking on moisture under normal circumstances. It does better than hickory, I can say that but I’ve not worked enough Osage to comment on that part.
I would recommend sealing the back, if not done already, with some shellac Being that it’s still green and you’re hurrying the drying. I have had drying checks run off the sides air drying when left like that.
Mike

[GlisGlis]

It had most of the sapwood sawn off, some checks in one end and a point on the other.

It seems to me that you have an all sapwood stave.
All the black locusts I've seen had dark heartwood and very pale sapwood with a clear separation.
I've made 2 bows all sapwood with a very tiny strip of heartwood (fading to none at tips) that shoot well.
Probably a full sapwood bow would work well too
Nice bow outline you got there. 

[jameswoodmot]

It had most of the sapwood sawn off, some checks in one end and a point on the other.

It seems to me that you have an all sapwood stave.
All the black locusts I've seen had dark heartwood and very pale sapwood with a clear separation.
I've made 2 bows all sapwood with a very tiny strip of heartwood (fading to none at tips) that shoot well.
Probably a full sapwood bow would work well too
Nice bow outline you got there. 

Nah it’s all good, just pale heart wood I think, here’s a picture of the other stave I’ve got

[jameswoodmot]

It lost about 6% of its weight on the radiators (it
Was already seasoned, just atmospheric moisture) and lost a gram over night so I called it good.

Put it back on the long string for a bit to drop the weight down as it was already taking set

[jameswoodmot]

A bit further down the road of going back and fourth I definitely found this one tricky to tiller. I think I didn’t give enough heat when taking the twists out of the limbs and some of its crept back in.

[jameswoodmot]

I ended  up under weight as usual but I don’t think I could get much more from this piece of wood, it’s taken about 2” of set. I’m pretty sure it started at 3 1/2” and is now at about 1 1/2” of reflex.
38lbs at 26”

I glued on some temporary tip overlays so I could shoot it without he inappropriate string popping off. Shot like an absolute dog I have to take that spare weight out of the tips.

I’ve got no idea how narrow I can take the tips with this stuff and they’re slightly thinner than I had hoped. It’s not a heavy  bow so I think I can still take some more width off them.
After some handle sculpting and tip narrowing it’s not too bad. Amazing what tip weight will do to a bow.

Hopefully you can see in that last photo the little bit of a wobble in the limb inside the flip, caused me some confusion that did!

I’ll get a full draw photo in a bit. Let me know where I could improve on my tiller!

[Badger]

 When you say the bow is a dog? How heavy are the arrows you are shooting?  Once you get the profile narrowed down pretty good any further gains you get from additional narrowing will be small. If you measure the backset immediately after unstringing and then check it again 10 min later how much does it move back?

[jameswoodmot]

Badger - it’s just ok massive in the tips at the moment, wants to beak my wrist and the arrows I had are on the light side for the bow. I left them real big but even after I took them down they were still large. I had a second go but I’ve got to get the proper tips on before I can shoot it again.

Probably comes back about half inch after ten minutes and then another half inch after an hour.

I reckon I’ve taken another 100 grains off each tip so we’ll see how that feels in a bit. I’m not worried about it really, just being hesitant with getting the weight off the outlets because I’ve had enough tips pull straight because I’ve over done it

[jameswoodmot]

Ok so, tips skimmed down and nocks on. I had it in my head that I was making a 45ish lb bow, I haven’t made one in that weight range before, they’ve all been heavier or lighter so I was erring on the safe side. Once I remembered it was 38lb I had reference for how much I could slim them down.

I went to meet Del the Cat a little while ago, he has a particular way of doing his tips and tip overlays that’s about the most elegant I’ve seen. I didn’t quite get it right but not too far off. No dropping this one tip down on a hard floor!

Just been shooting it and it’s pretty nice now. Shoots a 316 grain arrow I’m guessing well into the 160’s. I’m not very experienced at guessing speeds but I know it’s a lot faster than the others I’ve been shooting recently. Quite a bit of vibration in it and it’s loud but I think that’s a result of the hard wood and wide limbs?
The sting on it is fast flight but for an 80lb bow, it’s definitely not helping the bow but it’ll be interesting to see what a more appropriate string is like.

I’ve just unbraced it after half a dozen arrows and 20 ish minutes braced and it’s straight back to an inch of reflex and moving whilst I measure it. Will measure again in 10 mins

Edit; 1 1/4” after 10 mins and 1 1/2” after half hour