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130lb elm bow

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WillS:
This was the third stave that I got from Stuart in return for some English yew.  The first two made almost identical 80lb bows and were quickly snapped up, but Stuart also gave me a really nice chunky stave which I wanted to push as hard as I could to make a bow for myself.  I was sort of hoping for 140lb but wasn't particularly worried, as I hadn't ever tried this wood before and was just curious what it was capable of.

I kept it full thickness and full width, set up the tapers and got the bow finished with the cow horn sidenocks glued on, and then braced it to about 5".  It looked awful, so I used my heat treating method to "tiller" the bow (without losing any weight by removing wood) until the brace shape looked better. 

It was taken to 25" and I had a feeling it was lighter than it should be at that draw length.  I piked it by about 2.5" to take the overall length to 74", and took it down to my draw length of 30.5", where the scales read 132lb.  The bow took perhaps 1" of string follow.

I'm really quite pleased with this, as I know wych elm is perfectly capable of these weights but I've never been that keen on the idea of using English elm, so when I get my hands on some more I'll try and tip the 150lb mark.

Please excuse the incredibly poor full draw photo quality, it was taken as a video and is the best I could do!

Huge thanks to Stuart for this lovely timber and the opportunity to work with it.

Badger:
  Beautiful bow, beautiful job you did. I wish we had a self bow class for war bows in flight shooting using an arrow of at least about 700 grains.

WillS:
Thank you very much!

That does seem a shame - what's preventing the addition of such a class?

meanewood:
Great bow Will

Just goes to show that the 'meanewoods' make good, robust, and high poundage bows.
Time to get yourself in the 'Warbow Wales' record book for longest distance using English Elm.

Wouldn't it be cool to have a working bow from all the 'Meanewoods' available to the bowyers back in the day!

Stuart

wizardgoat:
Nice work Will, looks and sounds like some great timber

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