Harvested a Black Locust

[bigcountry]

Yes, BL is a fine teacher. Go a little wider and a lot longer.  60 inches for  what draw? Jawge

I shoot 29" but I figured if I cut any from the second picture, I could cut off the curled end to 60".  Maybe for someone with 26" draw.  Give em away to family or friends.  But I need to learn to tiller well.  So don't want to get ahead of myself.  The ones in the first picture are 70". 

[bigcountry]

  well ifn you want to get  rid of those,i'll take the one thats 4th from the left, is it about 2x4x66?

p.m. some details and i will pay for shipping ifn the size is right

i,ve been wanting to try b.l.,heck im just about tempted to cut the neighbors tree down to try it lol
                                      peace,
                                             tim

yea man, I can send you one out of that second batch.  They are 68" now.  But you would have to live with that end on em. 

I will be sealing and letting em dry out until next year.  I don't mind giving some away. 

[ricktrojanowski]

If you have the time.  I would remove the bark and sapwood both before any drying.  I found it much easier to get the sapwood of cleanly when locust is first cut.  I usually shellac the ends and backs with 4 to 5 heavy coats of uncut shellac.

[bigcountry]

I got the bark off and coated the "back" with elmers glue.  I put two coats on it.  I was reading in TBB where they recommend also taking the sapwood off.  They said it would crack easy.  I am hoping the sealing it will keep that from happening. 

I might take off the sapwood on two or so and rough em out to dry quicker.  But it would take so much time to do it on 6-8staves.

[DanaM]

If ya spent the time cuttin em and splittin them ya might as well at least try to make a bow.
If nothing else you will learn a ton about straightening and tillering

[bigcountry]

If ya spent the time cuttin em and splittin them ya might as well at least try to make a bow.
If nothing else you will learn a ton about straightening and tillering

You think it was a bad choice?  I was just going off TBB volumn 4 and thought it would make a bow.

[DanaM]

Straighter would be easier but go ahead and chase a ring seal the back and let em dry, then give it try, you should see all the crooked staves I have

[tom sawyer]

I've had my best luck sealing with shellac, you have to give them a couple coats though.  When I use glue, I thin it with some water first.  Never tried parafin, wonder if you could melt it in acetone and paint it on like that rather than keeping it warm?

I'd go ahead and get that sapwood off too, it'll help the wood dry faster and you'll see any knots so you'll know better what you have that way.  And you could rough out at least one bow, it'd dry a lot faster when its near dimensions and you could play with it this winter.

Don't forget about billets, I see some potential straight billets in your "junk pile".  And black locust will bend with heat, so you could probably straighten some of those bendy ones enough to use them.  Don't know that you could straighten the ones with the golf club look though.  My experience is, I hold onto everything for awhile and periodically cull out the junk when I become limited on space.  But don't store anything with bark on it with your good stuff, that bark harbors lots of bug larvae and bugs LOVE black locust.

Black locust makes a good bow.  How are your rings?  Good ratio of summer to spring wood?

[bigcountry]

not sure if you can see em, but rings looked nice.  Thin early rings.

[uhu]

Hi Big country,

I`m working on a Bl bow at the Moment.

The tree was harvested 2006 in February and the section I seasoned for staves about 2 m long and of diameter from about 15 cm.

I split the tree in halves. The first half I seasoned in the bark. I got a lot of splits and cracks and was nearly not usable for a bowstave after seasoning, so I put it away.

From the second half I removed the bark and secured the tips with shellac. It seasoned well and bent in reflex of about 2 1/2".

This year in May I began to remove the sapwood. It was an awfull lot of work for it was very thick. Next time I will remove the sapwood before seasoning and work te stave down to one ring of the core. Then I will secure the tips and the back with shellac. I think it will work and save a lot of time cause the wet sapwood is getting easily off.

I had to cut the seasoned stave to a length of only 58" because of a serious knot in one tip of the stave. So the bow will bend through the handle and will be backed with rawhide of a deer. I´m going to achieve 56" and 45# @ 28" draw.

It is going to be a thriller. The bow is now ready fot floor tillering and I will have to steam bend the upper limb to get out a serious curve to the right first to get the string leading to center. Then there have to be the tips bent back for about 1 1/2 or 2 " to get a better string angle.

If then the stave is still alive it has to be backed and gets to the tree. Hopefully a bow comes out. This one is the shortest I ever made and I`m confident to get the tillerin right.

The main problem will be the Steam bending.

Your logs look like as if there has to be done a lot of bending. But I think it may well be worth it. I learned a lot of so far.

So I wish you good effort for your plans

so long uhu

[richpierce]

I use dry heat for black locust.  Heat it with the heat gun till it starts to change color to a purplish color and it bends really well.

[bigcountry]

uhu, good info.  I am working on a shaving horse, and will try to take the sapwood off the best one so it will be ready by next year.  Good advise.