Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: steve b. on June 29, 2013, 09:53:24 pm
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Got a nice load of plum and huge hazelnut the other day. Here's the upper and lower trunk of the plum. The upper has about 6" of reflex and the other side of the lower trunk produced only billets. Something to look at............
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Very nice I hear from some reliable sources that plum makes a better bow than osage! :o
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Oh yea...I'd like to hear a little more about this plum wood.
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Do you debark plumb or let it season with the bark on?
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Cool Steve...I still haven't made a plum bow ..its on my list tho
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Looking forward seeing what you make out of those. I'd like to give plum a shot someday too.
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Dan, I personally debark everything and the bark on the upper wants to pop off so I will take it off soon.
I have an all points bulletin out for plum-master, rossfactor, as I understand he's in the know on this type of wood.
I got this wood from a friend who was clearing his yard for a garden. This guy had the biggest japanese maple, biggest hawthorn, biggest hazelnut, and biggest plum tree, that I've ever seen. He might take the hawthorn down too. :P
Here's the hazelnut, for example. Its three times the stuff I normally see and twice the size of some of the biggest. The plum is there too, pre-split:
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Beautiful wood. Good luck with it.
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That looks like flowering plum (Prunus cerasifera), which I have less experience with than purple leaf plum, so take this with a grain of salt.
1. You are stoked. Plum is the bomb.
2. I like to rough the bow out and wrap it in plastic wrap to avoid checking. You can also leave it in log form and paint the ends with glue as per standard methods. Don't halve the logs unless you're going to rough them out.
3. You can either split or saw, it doesn't matter. Look for limb twist which is pretty common in plum. If you're sawing through extreme limbtwist you can get into trouble.
4. As for limb design, the world is your oyster. Plum is strong enough in tension to handle most designs, and elastic enough to avoid excess set unless you really over extend it. One design I'm fond of is a 62" stiff handled bow with a rounded pyramid or eiffle tower limb shape, 1 3/4 wide at the inner limbs tapering to 1/2 inch tips, with a gentle static recurve on the outer 8 inches. But I've made short statics with plum also, and bendy handle d bows, and... several other designs. I haven't tried and ELB but I but plum would make a dandy one. Years ago I made a 48" stiff handled plum bow that drew 28". It took 2.5" set and still hasn't broken. Its good wood.
5. A general rule is to start you're thickness taper around 5/8" and tiller down from there but this will vary based on bow length and limb design.
6. Plum is diffuse porous wood, and doesn't soak up moisture the way oaks and hickory do, but it still likes to be dry. It also responds very well to dry heat, and belly tempering.
7. If you're bending sharper statics, I'd shellac and boil the tips for 1 hr per inch of wood thickness....
So much more to ramble on about, but basically, don't sweat it. You've got yourself some great bow wood. I'm looking forward to seem what it becomes.
Gabe
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i have a plum stave here. i split it and left the bark on. it has a lot of reflex. and some twist. but im sure there is a good bow in there somewhere. do you have to chase a ring on plum or is the first ring ok for the back?
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Steve, that is some good looking bow wood but it looks like you cut most of it too short :laugh: that is a lot of 16" billets!
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First ring Mr. Danny :)
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cheers bryce :)
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Thanks for the info on plum.I'll look to get it sometime.
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Yup, first ring. Plum sapwood is great stuff, and I find it better in tension than plum heartwood.
Gabe
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Good stuff, thanks Gabe. Now I just have to wait................................