After finishing university and getting rather lucky with work, I am now able to be back at home in Germany most of my time again and finally found back to bowmaking, so I wanted to be a bit more active here again, especially since I am back and forth between Europe and North America (mostly BC) regularly now thanks to work
The world has become quite small
Here's a little one I already built a few month again, was an order for a young woman who's rather on the short side. The bow is from European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior), has strong trapping and a proper heat treatment on the belly, same logic behind that as with Black Locust. Ash is rather strong and tolerable on tension, thus also making great backings, but it kinda sucks on compression, so to rectify that I give the belly more volume (trapping) and make it more pressure-resistant with the heat treatment. The mental image I always have in mind there is using the belly almost like a hinge over which you stretch the back of the bow. I always tiller close to full-draw before the heat treatment (sometimes doing that multiple times, you often end up with one limb stronger afterwards, you can even make slight changes to the tiller with it) and the difference in terms of performance when shooting before vs after is always astounding. Great way to optimize bows out of species strong on tension but weak on pressure (Hazel, Ash, Black locust, you name it).
Length ntn 139cm / 54 3/4 "
Drawweight 28#@24"
Weight incl. string 261g/ 9,2oz
Handle from Laburnum
Tips from water buffalo
String 8x FF
Finish 4x boiled linseed oil
Stringfollow directly after shooting 2"
Permanent set 1 1/4" (should've hung more weight on the limbs during heat treating
)
Width after fades is pretty much exactly 1" (on belly side), keeps that for about a foot and then to 0 at the end
Let me know your thoughts
Hope the pics work, I linked them from another side.
Unbraced
Braced
Full draw
Back/ trapping (the darker spots are that suuuupeer thin layer you get on the outside of the late wood rings with Ash, was very careful when chasing it to keep the optics)
Belly (excuuuse the irregularities, first time doing that since like 8 years, has gotten better again
)
Handle
Centershot. I always try to go for that with such light bows with short draw weights because almost any wooden arrow will be too stiff in spine, this way it doesnt really matter, just make the arrows very similar in weight and you are good to go)
Overlay from the side
Bit of a needletip. Arrow is 5/16" for reference
Hope you like it. If you don't, I'd love to hear why
