A while back, must be three years ago I was out hunting for bow wood and came across a failry unique piece of dogwood with a strange wiggle in it. I thought it just had to be made into a bow.
You'll see it there second from the left.
It went into my loft to dry. Every now and then I'd take it down, have a look at it and put it back again. Was the wiggle going to go sideways and give a kind of window, shoud it form a handle? Eventually I decided it would have to be the handle to make a kind of natural pistol grip.
Eventually I took it to the Prehistoric Archery and Atlatl gathering at Flag Fen, debarked it, and started work on it, roughling it out to bow like dimensions.
This summer I took it with me to the Paleo Planet European meet in Bulgaria. There I finished it out. The handle made it bit arkward on the tiller tree, and seeing the shape was not msade easy by that off shape but eventually it looked like a fialry good shape at about my bow weight and I decided to leave well enough alone and call it finished.
I made up a linen string with linen serving and a bow was born.
I must measure the poundage. To be honest I can't remember quite what it finished at. Will post this later.
When I got home I give it quite few coats of Tung oil and I have been shootong it since on a failry regular basis and like it. A few problems. It has developed a few chysals on the belly, basically around knots. It developed a start of a tension failry around a very very small pin knot. I bound that area and it seems to be holding up OK. I guess the back is failry crowned. A a few others have posted about tension failures around pin knots with dogwood so maybe I'll make the next bow a bit longer.
Today while shooting it around the woods at the club I decided it was about time I took a few pictures and shared the bow.
Here she is at my draw length. Those are long arrows by the way!
Another picture that maybe shows the shape a bit better.
Braces shape. It was a nice crips frosty morning in the woods.
The wiggle at the handle.
And again.
A view of the back of the bow.
I'll try to record draw weight and take some more pics this evening. Looks like that will have to wait. The batteries have gone on my bow scales!
A shot of the belly of the top limb.
Belly of bottom limb.
Back of top limb.
Back of bottom limb.
An interesting knot to work around.
The central pith tended to be a good guide.
I hope this shot shows the chrysal. Seems to be holding up though so I won't worry about it.
A bit more info who like dimensions etc. It is pulling about 47lbs at 29 inches. Limb width is 1 and 5/8ths narrowing in the outer half of the limb. total length 66 inches, nock to nock 65 and 1/4 inches. Pin nocks. Limb tips 1/2 inch (well one is actually 9/16ths).
A side view of the bottom limb.
A side view of the top limb.
A pin nock.
All in all I am impressed with dogwood as a bow wood. The back finishes up nice with the cambium showing through and it seems to shoot quite hard for it's physical size and mass.
Best wishes,
Mark in England
