Hazel hollow limb

[jameswoodmot]

Hitting the ground running with this one, the oil on the BL bow is t even dry yet.

Posted this stave a little while ago, nice and clean, 74” long. Goes from about three inch to a bit over 2” in diameter.
I dried the other half of it a bit too fast and it got a bit of a wibble on it so I’ll start with the straighter half.

Lopped it down to 66”

You can probably see my workshop in the photos, I’m not lacking in equipment. It’s so easy to go to the power tools it’s hard for me not to but I’m going to make this one with hand tools only.

Just going to steam and flip the tips this evening and heat treat it tomorrow

[jameswoodmot]

Never done a hollow limb before so we’ll see how this goes!

[Del the cat]

Looking good. It's a lovely, easy wood to work with isn't it?
Del

[Stickbow Felty]

Is there an advantage of doing a hollow limb or is it just for looks?

Greg

[jameswoodmot]

Yeah it’s nice Del, that is until it tears out! Does love to pull a splinter. Did t managed to help the bark on like that recurve you’ve got.

Felty, hollowing the limb is beneficial for small diameter staves as you can maintain even cross section and various other benefits that I won’t write out as you can read about them in far more detail here
https://primitive-bows.com/hld-a-new-progressive-design-for-selfbows/

[Hamish]

Hey James, I see an anvil, and what looks to be a power hammer in the background. Did you make that cool looking axe that you used to rough out the stave?

[jameswoodmot]

Well spotted Hamish. That one actually belongs to my partners mum (long story) and was made by a friend of mine, Oscar Rush https://www.oscarrush.co.uk/shop

I’m (just) retired from farriery, I’ve always been split between shoeing and a tool maker but it’s full time as of the beginning of the year.

I made the inshave and draw knife up above and here’s one of my axes.

It will probably explain the disparity between my woodworking and bow making skill!

[superdav95]

Nice lookin axe.  There are a few blacksmiths and blade smiths that have moved to the dark side. lol.  I made blades for 10 years before finding bows!   There is a section for blades and such on this forum too if interested. 

[Hamish]

James the disparity you feel is really smaller than you think. You may not have as many hours into bows yet, but what I have seen is really good work.
I find anyone who has good skills in another field will quickly learn and apply new skills, and things like attention to detail have a massive crossover in every field.

Nice tools. The good thing about making your own tools, and actually working with them too, is that you can tweek the design to improve performance. A smith that doesn't use them or at least take feedback from a user can produce a decent tool, but not usually as good. I smith many of my own tools, but also like to buy a lot too. Bookmarked Oscar's site.

[jameswoodmot]

Superdav, that doesn’t surprise me at all. There are a lot of similarities is terms of challenge. There is the practical skill of working the material, the technical knowledge of understanding the performance of the material, the artistic challenge of making it look nice and the added challenge of brining those things together into a finished item that performs its task.

Thanks Hamish, yeah it’s really nice basically doing what I said above. I had to make a smaller diameter in shave to hollow these limbs. A whole host of small challenges to overcome and to then be able to improve on next time

[jameswoodmot]

Well, that was an utter failure 😂 looks like someone should have done more research before getting carried away.

Too much hollow for a first try and I think I thinned out the edges too much. Wouldn’t bend so I thinned it more and more. Then when it did bend it just bucked like bending a measuring tape. I think I got the edges too thin so they just blew out. As soon as I saw a bit of the edge move it had bent enough to develop a week spot

Then when I realised there was no saving I just bent It to see what would happen and it split. The thin spits weren’t that thin compared to the rest but the limbs had become really unstable. I’ll revisit this design when I’ve forgotten the heat break