Main Discussion Area > Bows
Lemonwood /Degame
Hamish:
Your bows look good. You definitely have enough skill to experiment with lemonwood, and not be worried.
Lemonwood is a good wood, for bows. In fact it was considered one of the 3 top woods for commercial bow making(yew and osage the others).
Ipe, I would rate as superior to lemonwood. It takes less set, needs less wood to make a good bow, ie dimensions of an Ipe bow are much narrower. Ipe is a very heavy /dense wood.
It takes quite a bit of set if used as a board bow. I have not found it to be sensitive to fretting or chrysalling, as it will make a deep sectioned english longbow. Pat may have got a bad board, or the bow length/ width design was not enough for the poundage he was after.
To avoid set, and maximise cast, back the stave with boo or hickory, reflexing a couple of inches during the glue up.
Width for lemonwood flatbow, I usually go for 1.5-1.75" wide at the widest part. Pretty much the same design most people use for an osage flatbow. For a similar bow in Ipe I would use 1.25-1.5" for a flatbow.
This link on Stemmler has some dimensions of lemonwood bows that his factory used to make. https://www.archerylibrary.com/books/stemmler/essentials-of-archery/docs/making-the-flat-limbed-lemonwood-bow.html
As for steam bending lemonwood, I have never tried(due to the same warnings that you mentioned). I have heard some guys have tried it and been successful. Due to the best usage of lemonwood being in backed or laminated bows, most guys that want to recurve, glue it in. Either several thin core and belly laminations, tapered along the length, so the tip section is even thinner. You also have the option of saw kerfing the tip area of a thicker belly lam, so it becomes more flexible. You then glue in thin strips to take up the space that the kerf left, when you glue up the reflex.
Here's another method you could use, it involves gluing underlays, good for static tips. https://www.archerylibrary.com/books/stemmler/essentials-of-archery/docs/large.html
I just checked the second link won't show properly, try this one. If it works you can click on the images for more detail. https://www.archerylibrary.com/books/stemmler/essentials-of-archery/docs/reflexed-bows.html
jameswoodmot:
Thank you SO much! Thats really helpful
--- Quote from: Del the cat on February 07, 2025, 01:54:39 pm ---I've used it, it is almost homogenous with very little obvious grain, works well, fine for an ELB with boo, Hickory, Ash etc as a backing. Not as hard or splintery a Ipe.
Del
--- End quote ---
I have a lot of Ash, I buy it in sawn boards for my work (not bow related) the recurve above is made from it. Apart from straight clean grain is there anything I should know about backing it with ash? I would guess around 20% of the total limb thickness? Is growth ring orientation important?
Hamish, exactly the the kind of information I was hoping for! Those links are great, I’m looking forward to looking through it all.
My board is 3” wide and 7’ long, that should give me enough for a light bow and a medium bow with those widths you suggested. What sort of proportion of bamboo to belly, keep the back as thin as possible and trap it a bit?
The extra length of the board should give me a bit off wood to try steaming and also to make the laminations for the recurves.
Thank you all for the compliments on my bows! I’ve got six shooting, and a similar number failed/ abandoned.
I have been completely obsessed since the autumn. I’m going to have to give it a rest for a bit or I’ll suddenly lose interest.
I finished up a 45b wych elm bow last night that’s shooting around 152fps 10 grain p/p. I’m really pleased with that, plenty of room for improvement of course but it’s nice to see steady improvements in my tillering and design!
WhistlingBadger:
Welcome, James! I also don't know a thing about lemon wood. Just stopped by to take a look at your past bows. Beautiful stuff!
Del the cat:
--- Quote from: jameswoodmot on February 08, 2025, 09:17:17 am ---Thank you SO much! Thats really helpful
--- Quote from: Del the cat on February 07, 2025, 01:54:39 pm ---I've used it, it is almost homogenous with very little obvious grain, works well, fine for an ELB with boo, Hickory, Ash etc as a backing. Not as hard or splintery a Ipe.
Del
--- End quote ---
I have a lot of Ash, I buy it in sawn boards for my work (not bow related) the recurve above is made from it. Apart from straight clean grain is there anything I should know about backing it with ash? I would guess around 20% of the total limb thickness? Is growth ring orientation important?
Hamish, exactly the the kind of information I was hoping for! Those links are great, I’m looking forward to looking through it all.
My board is 3” wide and 7’ long, that should give me enough for a light bow and a medium bow with those widths you suggested. What sort of proportion of bamboo to belly, keep the back as thin as possible and trap it a bit?
The extra length of the board should give me a bit off wood to try steaming and also to make the laminations for the recurves.
Thank you all for the compliments on my bows! I’ve got six shooting, and a similar number failed/ abandoned.
I have been completely obsessed since the autumn. I’m going to have to give it a rest for a bit or I’ll suddenly lose interest.
I finished up a 45b wych elm bow last night that’s shooting around 152fps 10 grain p/p. I’m really pleased with that, plenty of room for improvement of course but it’s nice to see steady improvements in my tillering and design!
--- End quote ---
I cut my Ash backing as a strip about 3/16" thick so the grain looks like this on the end of the strip |||||||||||||||
Del
Hamish:
For bamboo backings, I go as thin as possible, knife edges on the width. I use the Dean Torges method, as shown in his videos, whereby you flatten the boo, then use a template of the bows shape from above, to trace the shape on the boo. Trim the boo down to the tracing and you will notice that the newly exposed edges are now thicker in appearance. You then plane down to the knife edges.
Many other guys just work it down, and laminate onto belly stock. It still seems to work. The argument is a thicker boo backing will cause more set.
I'm not sure as I've always used the Torges method, which looks a more professional in my eyes.
For ash as a backing the ideal method is as Del shows. You can still use flatsawn, or bias sawn backings. You caneven follow a single growth ring, as you would for making a self bow, saw it off and use it as a backing. Its a lot of work compared to using a strip of boo.
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