Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Marc St Louis on October 21, 2014, 09:42:20 pm
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No this is not an Ottawa bow but rather an RD bow made from Plum I cut in Ottawa. My wife's family come from Ottawa and some 100 years ago they owned a quarry. The quarry is still there, albeit a bit overgrown with trees and humans. At some point in the past someone planted some Plum trees and they have spread. They're not big trees and many are gnarly but some are a decent size. I came across a decent one last Spring, decent in the sense that it was quite nice for the first 4' and then it turned nasty. I came back home with a 6" log 4' long, which I split and sealed. A couple weeks ago I thought I would take out a couple of the worse billets that I got out of it and splice and make an ALB out of them. Didn't quite work out that way. After cleaning them up a bit I realized that there was too much sapwood, more than 1/2" in some places, and I would have to make a 100# bow if I wanted to have any of the heartwood left in the bow.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v355/Marc-St-Louis/Composite%20Bows/Maple%20Backed%20Plum/HeartwoodSapwood.jpg)
I changed my mind and decided to make a backed RD bow for hunting instead. I ripped about 1/4" of the sapwood off then finished prepping the surface with rasp and scraper. I then glued the billets together and backed them with Maple. The finished bow turned out nice and the color of the heartwood is quite attractive. I originally glued some Bloodwood nock overlays on the bow but I took it out to shoot it the other day and one of the overlays sheared right off, fortunately it didn't damage the bow, so I changed them to antler. I can tell it is fast
The bow is 63" long overall with limbs 1 1/4" wide and it pulls 55# @ 28". I glued in 3 1/2" of reflex and it kept just over 1" of that, it gradually creeps up to 2" after a couple hours. Here's some pics
(http://i.imgur.com/ovYMzxq.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/dCTins6.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Gv2KOPa.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/qk7ufW3.jpg)
I started to break the sapwood I ripped off the back so that I could burn it in my stove but it was so darn hard to break that I ended up cutting it into pieces instead. I think maybe next time I'll see if I can try and thin the sapwood instead. Or I may rip a strip of the sapwood off, thin it and glue the strip back down. I know the wood dry heat bends quite well so I may try a recurve as well.
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Very nice as usual Marc. I'd like to try plumb one of these days.
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Sweet looking bow Marc , I've been watching the sand plum thickets for some decent sized plum staves , haven't found any yet .
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Sweet bow,bet it is smooth and will spit and arrow. :) The color combo looks very nice also as does the tiller.
Pappy
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Very cool, love the unbraced profile
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Masterpiece:-)
Is all that reflex glued in?. What glue do you use? and Do you think a bamboo backing could work as well as maple on plum?. Forgive my questions....but I have next to no experience with "laminated" bows, only ever made 5, and they all pulled out their glued in reflex.
Cheers
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Nice bow Marc.
How much deflex did you glue the billets into to start with?
Were you able to diagnose the reason for the overlay shearing off?
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Sweet bow Marc. Problem is, I told you I was a righty.....now your going to have to build me another one.
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Thanks guys. Plum is certainly top grade wood, very elastic. I don't know if, like Osage, it has any moisture resistance though. I'll certainly get more the next time I'm in Ottawa.
All the reflex is glued in and I used Urac for most of the gluing, a little bit of TB3 in the handle and the overlays. The wood is dense, tough, and very hard so I would assume that Bamboo would work quite well as a backing. The Maple backing is 1/8" thick with a slight thickness taper. I also used a piece of the sapwood I ripped off for a power lam.
I don't measure the angle of deflex when I glue them together. It wasn't a glue failure so I assumed the Bloodwood was just not up to the task.
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Nice job, Marc...and I am a lefty in case you're interested. ;D
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the unbraced profile says that bow is a screamer! ;D looks great too!
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Marc, interesting story and a beautiful bow...Tiller is awesome 8)
Don
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Thanks guys
I used to be able to do many things left handed when I was young and I recently started shooting lefty. I still need to do a lot of practice before I become proficient but I like the change. My shoulders have been giving me so much trouble lately that even the 55# is a bit of a pain to pull back
The land I harvested this small tree from is land that the Algonquins are negotiating for in their long awaited treaty settlement. Makes it even more special to me
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Yay lefty bow! Amazing as usual.
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Pretty bow Marc. This city is full of plum, just waiting for a dark rainy night....
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Very nice Marc, looks fast.
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Thank you guys.
Not only is the wood excellent for bows it's also very attractive. Definitely first string wood
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I love it Marc! Very nice! I'm fixing to make my first reflex/deflex bow. Any pointers on tiller? Patrick
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Great job Marc I just love the unbraced profile.
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This is great Marc. I'd been wondering how plum would do in a laminate, although I always felt it would do great backed with maple or ash. I live in a really humid environment and plum will definitely take on moisture, although at a much slower rate than oaks, hickories etc... I've also found that diff plum varieties have really different characteristics. Purple leaf plum seems to be quite a bit softer than many of the green leaf flowering varieties but plp tends to check less and is very elastic and easy to bend with wet or dry heat.
Anyway great bow as usual.
Gabe
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Thanks guys. I took it out for a bit of a hunt yesterday. Very light in the hand to carry.
I forgot to mention that the bow has shallow D section limbs.
Go slowly Patrick.
Plum is not easy to find up here Gabe so I was quite pleased to find some. I'm not positive what this species is. I know it's not Purple Leaf Plum but the Plums are black when ripe.
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nice marc...first time I saw a maple /plum laminate..cool!!! :D
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Most people make Plum self-bows Chris but the sapwood was too thick for that and I'm still not interested in making a 100# bow :).
I have enough billets for another 3 bows so I will be making more of them
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It's a beauty! Very nicely done. Jawge
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My elbows and shoulders aren't interested in 100#+ bows either ;)
Are ya gonna try a R/D static with onen of those sets ? That would be cool to see how that fairs
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awesome bow. I hate shoulder problems. Have you done much physical therapy? I've injured my shoulders too many times when I used to lift weights a lot. And many times those injuries just wouldn't heal unless I did some consistent very light weight excesses... Took a long time but got better...just a thought that may help.
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Thanks guys
Yes well most likely do a static with a set
No I haven't done any PT. I've noticed that my shoulders bother me more when I do certain types of work, such as landscaping around the house. A well known Wing Chun master who got a bow from me sent me some Dit Da Jow to try but it doesn't seem to do much, the stuff smells nice though :)
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Nice! Sweet shape to it for sure.
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Yeah, that is a sweet shaped bow. I like everything about it. Thanks for sharing the story too.
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Nice profile, hard wood to dry! :)
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Thanks guys
I'm sure it is Brian but then so is any hardwood with an SG of more than .60. The SG of this Plum is about the same as HHB, definitely more elastic though.
There was another tree not far from the one I cut that was even nicer, it still only a billet length log to it though. I'll see if I can harvest that one next year.
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Since I have bnever seen HHB in person, is it prone to checking as bad as a lot of fruit woods?? When I sold turning wood yrs back, fruit wood was always a pain....it would want to check even sealed in wax. I stopped cutting it because of the loss.
VMB
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I've seen HHB check on the back but it's rare and depends on when the wood is cut. This Plum was not bad for checking at all
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I have a lot of small wild plum saplings where I live, up to 6" across, but I have not had as much luck as I like with them, because a LOT of them, almost all I have tried, have really twisted grain, like it can't be split and turns 60-90 deg over, say 4'. I have finished MORE knotty little plumb self bows than anything from them, bcasue a ton of knots seems to change the way they grow.
With a backing, do ya suppose I could saw out a blank from hearwood and ignore this twist? like grain angle might approach 5 degrees, Works with some selfbows...
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Great looking bow Marc!
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Really like that one Mark, great job as usual.
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That bow is gorgeous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Thanks guys
I don't see why making a backed bow out of twisted Plum wouldn't work. The wood is very tough and extremely elastic. I've used twisted HHB before without any problems and it can have quite a bit of twist sometimes
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Its always a pleasure to look at your bows Marc. very nice
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Thank you Danny. Made a bow out of one of your staves not long ago
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Great bow out of pretty wood. I have some plum staves seasoning
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really nice, inspiring,, :) :
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Beautiful as usual marc!you are inspiring and a master!
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Thanks guys
If you ever have the opportunity to use Plum then by all means do so. It is every bit as good as Osage in elasticity
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I may have to re look at a couple wild plums around here.
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I think plum would have been the longbow wood of choice instead of yew had sufficient quantities of straight wood been available. Not taking anything way from yew which is fantastic, I just think plum is first grade wood in all respects. Jaro made a long bow from plum a few years ago. I need to check with him on how it came out.
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Very nice bow Sir.
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Marc, this is a great bow! Even I wouldn't know the bowyer, I would guess Marc St. Louis is the bowyer. The bow is definitely Marc. St.Louis- style.
Any chronos?
All the plum I've came across. was heavily twisted and splintered. Years ago I shot a plum- bow. I guess a clean plum stave is as good as osage.
Michael
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Thanks again
Finding wood that is relatively clean of branches is a problem. In some ways it is easier to work than Osage
I've been shooting the bow on and off and it is very fast, considerably faster than the 3 lam ERC bow I made a few months ago of the same draw weight and they both have about the same amount of reflex.
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Hi Marc,
could you spare a moment to go through how you split up the dimensions of this bow? As in, upper/lower limb, height above center of the arrow pass, that sort of thing.
On backing twisted wood: if the backing is sound, you can use pretty much any grained wood you like. I used to agonise over picking just the right board for bamboo backing, and discovered years later, to my delight, that I could use highly figured, twisted and knotted wood...saving myself lots of time in the timber shop and making more interesting looking bows.
Dave
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Equal length limbs Dave put the arrow pass about 1 1/2" above center
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Thanks Marc.
Is that a fairly standard configuration, even in your shorter bows?
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I prefer equal length limbs Dave