Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Allyn T on December 11, 2020, 09:30:37 pm
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I debarked a stave tonight and I am hoping to get 3 bows out of it. Do you think I should split it or try to band saw it. I have a little table top saw. Says it's like 2hp I think.
(https://i.imgur.com/lx6Rssu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/jRXfpGG.jpg)
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Probably saw. If you’re good with your saw, you could knock the heartwood off of it and keep that “belly split” and cut you some quarter sawn board bow staves or backings out of it
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I would saw it but that bench top might not be good enough. My experience with bench-top bandsaws haven’t been good. Even if the are powerful enough I can never get them to cut straight. But yours might be different and if you can do it I would definitely go that route.
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I'd say saw if your saw is 2hp :o you should be able to cut through anything! A decent blade, a well adjusted saw and some care and patience when hand feeding the stave are called for. IMO don't try to use a guide to run a stave through, as cutting along the guide can still allow the blade to wander or pull the stave off line. You want a blade with alternate set teeth.
Will you get 3? Depends where you want them in that timber (you don't say what it is). if you mark 'em on there with a sharpie, we can comment... there are some scribed lines on there, but they don't make sense to me...
It's easy to think you have more width than you really do, I cut the corners off first which narrows the back to a more realistic width.
Del
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Del, I think those are drying checks.
I'm generally conservative about trying to get staves out, but I've gotten 3 out of pieces like that plenty of times. Depends more on your equipment and ability.
Here are a few potential options I see.
1. If it split nice and straight before, split it in half to get two staves.
2. If you and your saw are up to the task... measure down from the bark 2" and draw a line down both sides of the stave. Cut that piece of heartwood off to possibly make a heartwood bow. This is a tricky cut, even on a big, powerful, accurate bandsaw.
3. You could split that belly piece off instead of sawing it. That works too. If you have a good circular saw, you could draw those lines down the sides, kerf it with a circular saw down both sides, then pop it the rest of the way off there with a wedge. Then split the sapwood piece in half.
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Not sure if I'd be able to get more than 2 bows out of that stave.
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It looks like I should try to saw it and see how it goes. It's hickory and I got the bark off last night. It split straight when I reduced it to staves. My initial thought had been belly split and then splitting the sapwood in half. I'll try to cut the belly stave first and see if it works
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Every time I got greedy on trying to get a bunch of staves I ended up with less. I play it save now go conservative.
I tried to split off the core on a huge hickory stave the other day, the split ran off and I ended up with a chunk of firewood 6" wide and 7' long.
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Dang Eric that's a cautionary tale if I've ever heard one. I know I could split it in half safely but I don't know about the belly. Really wanna be able to use that heart wood though, and don't want to ruin the stave ugh )-w(
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If that is hickory, the heartwood will not be useful as a bow wood anyway. I would split the stave down the center and get two from it. I am with Eric Krewson, I tend to lean conservative. Better to get two good staves than zero. I have ruined my fair share of amazing staves by getting greedy.
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Is the stave hickory? I've never seen hickory with that much heartwood. It looks like it was split initially. If so seems to me it would split straight again.
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I’ve made a bow with hickory heart wood and it held up so I wouldn’t throw away that heart wood. I haven’t seen hickory that dark before either.
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I see sparks flying when cutting Hickory with a band saw. I would split it in 2, and see what you have. I have read were flight shooters have made sinew backed heart wood Hickory bows that were excellent shooters. I have one that is backed,and has siyahs that does oK, but it took to much set. Builder error. That was at a time that I used no heat to make a bow.
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Yes it's shag bark hickory
(https://i.imgur.com/ecS9BkI.jpg)
It was a rather large tree, I got 6 trunk sections out of it all 78" long. This stave I think is from the second biggest section
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I've heard that hickory heartwood is brittle which wouldn't be bad for belly wood so you could back it with more hickory sapwood, maple, ash or elm and make another bow with the heartwood.
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As cleanly as the rest of the staves split, I wouldn't hesitate to split off the heartwood and split out 2 staves from the sapwood. I've found that starting a split in the center of a stave and work out towards each end will generally give you a cleaner split.
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That's a great pile of hickory splits, kudos. I've had good luck with hickory, made 'em wide and flat (ala The Bent Stick). Never did any heat treating of hickory but others say you can do it. That's enough hickory to keep you making bows for good long time.
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Alright Pat I'll try it, I don't think my saw is up to ripping logs, if it doesn't work I'm blaming you : )
Gifford I am lucky with that pile I should be through it in about 50 years at my current rate
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I'll accept the blame. :OK
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I split the stave you gave me,, it split very nice,, I am in the process of making a bow from the unuseable heartwood as we speak, it was from the belly split,, have one layer of sinew on it, as Pat mentioned it should be good for the belly,, I hope,, )P( I used alot of hickory when I lived in Tennessee,, I used heartwood and sapwood with positive results,, and did see alot of trees that looked like your stave,,and I made alot of board bows as well,,
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I'm gonna go for it tonight Brad :-T
Didnt you get 4 splits off that stave?
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The hickory I’ve worked with had very soft heartwood and excellent sapwood. I’d opt for splitting it.
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yes but the 4th was a little iffy,, but its looking pretty good with the sinew,, I have hopes for it,,
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The hickory I’ve worked with had very soft heartwood and excellent sapwood. I’d opt for splitting it.
I have found softer heartwood in a hickory board I bought once. that doesn't tell you much about your staves, but when I was scraping with the card scraper, I could tell the difference between the heartwood and the sapwood by the way the card cut. needless to say, the heartwood failed early in the tillering of that bow. you could always do some test scraping on some corner areas if you make a facet first. Dels idea to facet the side corners before deciding about widths available is prudent too.
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Well I started to split it but got called away by my wife. Guess I'll have to finish it tomorrow.
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yes just thinking out loud, but knowing you want a long draw,, getting enough width, would be important,, and not so much how many staves you can get,, its always a trade off,,
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That is true Brad. I don't know if I'll get three out of this but 2 for sure. I learned about removing the cambium from my first stave so at least the back is intact (-S
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I had a similar load of hickory, two 6' logs, I split off some of the heart wood to reduce the weight so I could get the staves off the ridge to my truck, green the heartwood split off easily. I made the initial split in the log with my chainsaw, everything else spilt off the halves straight and clean.
(https://i.imgur.com/TFk1NnZ.jpg)
This was late cut wood so the bark wouldn't slip off. I popped a chalk line on the splits and used a skill saw to kirf the wood for the final split to staves.
(https://i.imgur.com/HM1UCLi.jpg)
Being stave rich I didn't go for the max and had plenty of scrap for all my friends BBQ grills. I ended up with 17 perfect staves.
(https://i.imgur.com/hkGKVBW.jpg)
I gave almost all these staves away, mostly to my bow making students, the tree was downed by high winds and I hated to see it go to waste. I have plenty of osage and haven't made a hickory bow in years.
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I'm rather envious of at all that wood. Hickory doesn't grow this far north and I haven't seen a fraction of that much good wood for years. We do have as much HHB as I can handle though.
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I started the split with my machete trying to use it like a froe. I'll see how it finishes out. I think I tried to save too much heart wood so now my sap wood might be thin on the edges
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Allyn, make yourself some wood wedges and once you get a split started use those wedges. They will give you better results than a machete.
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I've found that starting a split in the center of a stave and work out towards each end will generally give you a cleaner split.
Pat, what do you use to start your split this way? I usually do this on small trees / big saplings if I’m trying to get two staves out of them. This really helps with runoff, but, for me, it can be a pain to start the split. I usually drive a hatchet till I can place my wedges, but I’ve had a bunch not want to open up. All elm so I guess it may just be the wood.
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I have 2 five pound wedges I was just using the machete to try and get a clean start.
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Split pretty clean
(https://i.imgur.com/NbFaqNN.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/T14urhD.jpg)
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That split clean! Well done.