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Hawthorn Bow

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meanewood:
I'm nearly ready to start on a hawthorn bow. I've read Hawthorn is good in both tension and compression, so I'm wondering what profile would suit best?

It was a 70mm diameter log, so the back already has a nice rounded shape, so I'm thinking an elliptical profile with the belly rounded about the same!

This looks like a 'hard' wood, even the cadmium on the back was hard to sand in order to clean it up!

Does anyone have any advise?

Lucasade:
No advice but I'll be watching this - we've got some lovely hawthorn at the bottom of our garden that I've got my eye on.

joachimM:
Hawthorn is very good in compression, especially with dry wood (8-9% mc) so when you start noticing set, watch out for the back. Still, I'd keep the belly flat.
A farrier's rasp does wonders on hawthorn.
Pins are often hidden under the surface and can give you explosive breaks. Apart from that its great bow wood.

mikekeswick:
Hawthorn has taken more set than I would like in the couple of bows I've made from it. It will fail in tension before it will in compression. I think its elasticity isn't the best and maybe its a bit 'sluggish'...It's a bit of a 'funny' wood imo.

joachimM:
Mikekeswick: isn't that a contradiction? If it fails in compression, it means it's taking (a lot of) set, but you write it fails in tension before compression?

I guess it's rather like black cherry (compression strong), although my experience with that wood is very limited.

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