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100# self ash, complete with whopping chrysals....!
mikekeswick:
Don't use a stave with too much reflex.
What does extra reflex mean to the bellywood? Remember wood can only compress/stretch about 1% of it's length.
And don't try to tiller a bow in half an hour. The result of rushing is that rather large weak area!!
As I seem to remember telling you ash is way stronger in tension than it is in compression. Equalise the forces and you will get much better bows.....however I also seem to remember you telling me that it doesn't matter ;) I've done a lot of testing with ash as it's our most common straight tree.....I'm 100% it does matter!
WillS:
I agree completely Mike - I'm not sure I remember saying it doesn't matter at any stage though! I rarely make anything out of ash without heavy trapping, heat treating and a flat belly. They all work, and provide consistent results, and if I need an ash bow I'll always use those techniques.
The reason this was frustrating for me is that I know having seen bows made by people like Jaro and Joe that ash also works without any of it, provided you're good enough to do it. Jaro's beautiful 160# ash self bow had no trapping, no heat treatment and a round Mary Rose style cross section. I've also seen a really nice ash bow that Joe made, around 80# which looked like a yew self bow except for the colour. It was completely round bellied and flat backed, very narrow and again had no heat treatment at all. The difference is that those guys are wizards with white woods. My hope is to get that right one day, and experimental stuff like this is the only way to get it right. I think also that the ash itself needs to be flawless for it to work, but my skills as a bowyer are way below par for it to work on the good stuff anyway!
As for the reflex - again you're quite right. It threw me for a loop being so extreme. The reason it had so much was because the stave was heavily bent sideways, so instead of doing awkward sideways heat bending which is always a pain with wide, thick staves I decided to flip the orientation and use the edge rings on the back of the bow, resulting in a reflex of about 5". We live and learn!
My next experiment is with ash that succumbed to the dieback disease. I've got about 6 dead straight 8ft trunks that would otherwise be perfect, except for a horrible black streak all the way through the cores. Those will be worked as usual - flat belly, trapped back, heat treated until the cows come home and if they work, I'll be trying the round belly, no heat method as well.
Yeomanbowman:
If a stave has 5" of reflex I'd steam in straight and it will creep back to a more manageable amount. You can trap the back but using a small diameter stave does much the same thing. A thing that is also worth mentioning is that Czech ash is likely to be denser than ours. I've had a stave of Welsh ash that was .7 in SD but this is as good as I've seen but others have been far lighter.
Will, what was yours out of interest?
His seem to be around .8 as per normal when he harvests them from the right spot.
I wouldn't be too quick with a bloom though. They can shoot for good while with big frets - not very relaxing though!
BTW if you do go the bloom route you can boil the bloom and dry clamp it to get a really good fit. Leave it a while to dry and after a light sand glue it with TB3.
WillS:
Cheers Jeremy! I haven't actually measured the density of this stuff. I could do a test bit though. I remember him telling me ages ago how important it is, along with all kinds of very Jaro-esque ways of determining whether it's good or not, such as chewing on the wood fibres, and making note of the noise the stave makes when you slap it with your hand! He's the Willy Wonka of White Wood Weapons.
Liking the boiling idea - I do it with splices but never thought of trying it with a bloom. I've already chopped a chunk out of the belly, as learning to do it is more valuable to me than another sub-par ash bow! I'll have a go at boiling it tonight (while she's at work, of course ;) ) and see how it works out.
Yeomanbowman:
Chewing the fibres, eh? Wouldn't fancy that with yew :) but I guess it would make sense one you'd tried a few and knew what you were 'looking' for.
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