Primitive Archer

Nice JW , some good eating right there. Pappy

I hope you got some at the potluck last time I was there! 

I've only made one  bow from sugar maple. It was a short 50# bow with about a 25" draw. It was more than 20 years ago and I don't remember where that bow went.

I have made quit a few from red maple and had no trouble with frets. I made all those  maple bows 66" NTN, 2-1/2" wide at the fades, straight tapered sides to 3/8" tips, about 7/16" thick from fades to tips. They were all near perfect tiller right off the band saw. Finished up on a belt sander. Draw weight averaged in the high 30s.

I have made two lighter bows from loblolly pine that did not fret. They too were about 7/16" thick with lengths appropriate for the draw length. They were narrower and came in at 25#. Neither had any frets. Both took about 2" of set from their pretillered condition.

For any wood, for a given amount of bend on a given radius, there is a particular thickness above which damage will occur. A piece of maple or balsa 1/16" thick might bend 180 degrees without damage. A sample 1/2" thick probably would break before reaching 45 degrees.

Thickness needs to be appropriate for the amount of bend. Draw weight needs to be the result of width.

I have put up a lot of cables to keep the kids (and adults) on 4 wheelers out of land I hunted, I always covered the cables with a 4" piece of PVC pipe to keep the trespassers from cutting their heads off should they run into a cable after dark, suing me and taking away everything I worked for my entire life. I put the cable about 2 1/2' off the ground and made them too tight to lift and drive under. I locked the cables with huge locks and had the keyed so one key fit every lock on the property. Of course the jerks would vandalize my locks with superglue and breaking keys off in them.

I do use dye almost 100% of the time  to "stain" the wood on bows, just a play on words. The exception is when I use dye from walnut hulls to stain arrows or match repairs to the wood on a walnut stocked B/P rifle.



 The other exception is when I use a nitric acid solution called aqufortis to stain maple gun stocks, the results are quite striking. To use aqufortis one paints it on a stock, let it dry and go over the wood with a heat gun to "blush" the the wood. Heat makes aqufortis react with the tannin in wood to bring out the final color.



It adds a pretty, deep brown color to hickory



One time I thought "aqufortis makes maple look incredible, I wonder what it will do to osage". It was big disappointment, it turned osage as black as coal.

The ASTB has a yearly shoot to raise money for the Alabama Children's hospital, for years I would try to have a bow ready to donate. The club had a free BBQ lunch on Saturday and auctioned off a variety of items after the supper. Tim bid $500 for the bow I mentioned, an enormous sum for a bow back then.

Here is the last bow I donated, a wonderful BBO, the young ladies Grampa bid $300 for her to have it, I included a matched set of arrows that shot well out of the bow. This was the most underperforming BBO that I ever made, I glued reflex into it and it developed string follow. With the tournament date nearing I thought what the heck, got out my heat gun and toasted the belly of this bow to the max. It regained it's reflex, I knew I had a winner with the first shot, the bow had turned into a rocket launcher. 10 years later it is still the high performer it was when I auctioned it off.



The other way I donate stuff is to trade an item for a donation to St Jude. I price the item and give buyer a link to the St Jude donation page. I request a donation conformation number after they donate, when they give me the number I ship the item. I always pay the shipping on any item I donate as a "thank-you" to the person for their donation.