Quicky black locust dead branch bow

[richpierce]

 Here’s my quickie hatchet bow made from a dead locust tree limb.  It was “straight as a gut” as my grandpa used to say and I didn’t know if there was enough wood to make a bow, so I went fast and rough and made it in the morning and shot it in the afternoon.  Hit the tips with the heat gun to blast in some reflex and called it done.  It’s 60” long, 1.5” wide, and draws 46# at 27”.  The fun part is it looks like a crooked piece of lath somebody threw out and let warp, but it shoots without much kick and is easy to shoot well.  There’s no way to fix the tiller, which is bad, but it seems to not care that much.  I think I have it set crooked on my tillering tree, so maybe it's not as awful as it looks.  It’s not taking a set and I think it will last.  It is mighty crude though.  I think black locust is so tough.  If I tried something like this with some other woods, it would probably explode.


 

[Pat B]

Cool little quicky bow. It would make meat for sure.      If you grip the handle a bit more up the right limb(in last pic) that would help to even out the tiller.  Pat

[tsa yo ga]

i like the idea of quick and simple.  did all the ancient bowyers tiller to perfection?

[Far East Archer]

Shoot it like a yumi! 
Very nice bow, considering the amount of time and quality you had to work with.

Alex

[koan]

Sweet!!!....Brian

[The Burnt Hill Archer]

NICE! ive got a hatchet bow in the works right now, but its out of a good piece of hickory. you did a great job on that for what you had to work with. livin up to the motto, "do what ya can, with what ya got!". cool man!

Phil

[Pappy]

Looks good to me . Nice job.
   Pappy

[George Tsoukalas]

Very impressive work. Jawge

[sailordad]

now thats a truly primitive looking self bow.

i'm impressed

gotta ask ya, what was the diameter of the dead branch. my next door neighbor has a great looking BL with a fairly thin dead branch i could manage to acquire.

[ricktrojanowski]

Nice work.  I wouldn't call that tiller bad.  Especially if you consider the speed of the build and the piece of wood you used.  I like it.  I need to make me a quicky bow.  Quick for me would be less than 4 months.

[medicinewheel]

COOOOOL!
frank

[radius]

those nocks look sharp as knapped obsidian! 

[Dustybaer]

love this bow.  i just realized, i can get just as excited about a bow like this, as i can about one of gordon's or medicinewheel's, with their perfect finishes.  the beauty is in the bow.

[medicinewheel]

love this bow.  i just realized, i can get just as excited about a bow like this, as i can about one of gordon's or medicinewheel's, with their perfect finishes.  the beauty is in the bow.

same here!
good adition to the 'pretty bow' discussions lately: the beauty is in the bow!
frank

[DanaM]

Nice bow but I would be worried that the nocks would cut the string