Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: rger on June 24, 2015, 02:43:49 pm
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Hello everyone. I am new here and generally in archery. I wanted to make a longbow and I have red some articles about bow making. Now I am not sure what is the right way to do this. So I need some advise...
I purchased hickory stave. Originally I wanted to make a longbow. After a lot of reading I am a bit confused. Some people suggest removing sapwood completely, some suggest making limbs only from sapwood. I originally thought that traditionally sapwood forming back of a bow along with heartwood making a bally. In this case sapwood should be shaved out leaving only about 3/16" and the rest would be shaped from belly side. The stave I have has about 7/8" of sapwood (see the pic). I wood appreciate some input from those who has experience. At this point I am not sure what path should I go, flatbow, longbow. Should I use only sapwood only, heartwood only or combination as I thought originally? The idea was to use a single piece of wood for the bow. Thanks for those who respond :)
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I know with hickory, the white wood is typically used for tension. That said, I've made a bow out of all heartwood and a bow out of all sapwood, but never one with a sapwood back and heartwood belly. In my case, I found both heartwood and sapwood to be very forgiving of mistakes and very tough. Someone with experience please correct me if I'm wrong, but they seemed about equivalent for me. Didnt matter which I used, the wood behaved about the same.
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By the time you get your bow roughed out you wont have any heartwood left, except the back of the handle. That's how 99% of hickory bows are made, all sapwood.
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For a 45-55# bow at 28" Id built a simple flat bow. 66" ntn, 1 3/4" wide until mid limb, then taper to 1/2" wide tips. Cant go wrong with that recipe and any whitewood. Make the handle 4" long and each fade 1 1/2-2" long.
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It's Hickory so make a bow
it won't make much difference what part of it you use especially with as strait a grain as I see there
could be about what ever design you want but what Pearl gave is a good one for beginners !
Have fun
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Use the wood under the bark, the sapwood, as the back of your bow.
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The goal is 40-50# @ 28". I guess I will follow your advise for flat-bow.
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Pearl and Pat B have given you sound advice for a hickory bow. Hickory also likes to be dry.....6-8% MC. Check the moisture content if you can and make sure the wood is well seasoned. If it's in the 10-12% range you can store the stave in your hot car or an attic to dry it down a few more points. Good luck and have fun. Lots of folks here to help. Keep asking questions.
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Unless I'm wrong, I'm reading that as a board and not a stave....only looks to be about 3/4" thick....If that's the case it's cut perfectly on the quarter and is vertical grain across the with and we are looking at the back or the belly (your choice).....If that's the case follow Pearly's advice because I think he's reading it as a board also....don't even worry about the sapwood it's on the edge of the board and you have plenty enough just in the heartwood portion.
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Your picture shows a board with nice straight grain. If it is that perfect from end to end and that wide from end to end you can start by splitting it right down the middle. That will give you two boards, or staves about an inch and three quarters wide. One will be all heartwood if the entire board is as shown. The other will be half sapwood and half heartwood. I have made many half and half and they have always been fine and it will probably be as strong as the heartwood side.
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It's hickory you are good to (http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt320/bubncheryl/100_1254.jpg) (http://s623.photobucket.com/user/bubncheryl/media/100_1254.jpg.html)
(http://i623.photobucket.com/albums/tt320/bubncheryl/100_1333.jpg) (http://s623.photobucket.com/user/bubncheryl/media/100_1333.jpg.html)
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I use the sap wood.
Pappy
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Just take off the bark and make a bow on a log stave. If it is a board look for straight grained stock with no knots no matter how small. Jawge
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Unless I'm wrong, I'm reading that as a board and not a stave....only looks to be about 3/4" thick....If that's the case it's cut perfectly on the quarter and is vertical grain across the with and we are looking at the back or the belly (your choice).....If that's the case follow Pearly's advice because I think he's reading it as a board also....don't even worry about the sapwood it's on the edge of the board and you have plenty enough just in the heartwood portion.
randman it is stave. I debark it. it is 3.5" tall and 3.5" wide. I actually was thinking to make two staves from it. Just because I am new to it, I wasn't sure. Thank you. I guess I will post the progress here.
PS: my first experiment was a learning curve. See pic attached. It's riser made of old tea table lags and limbs are old XC skies. The string was made on flemish jig, which needed some tuning. And I made it from non-stretching fishing line. Because it was more learning I wasn't hoping for really good outcome. After all I had about 20# recurve. My son liked it :)
Few lessons learned from it.
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I use the sapwood too, but if it's a stave you keep that much on and plan to have any heartwood left, you'll be making a 100+ pound monster! If it's a board, ignore it! I've made a couple bows with half sapwood half heartwood split right down the center of the limb
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If that's a stave it's a no brainer....use the debarked sapwood as the back...no need to chase any ring........Fine looking piece of wood at any rate....
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I would NEVER attempt to chase a ring on hickory... NEVER... you will go insane trying and for what...no reason...under bark is back....one of the best woods around when dried properly..gut