BITH Powhatan Style Red Oak Board Bow 52lb @ 26"

[Threy Cameron]

Hey everyone!

I've been reading and learning from this site for a long time now and finally decided to make a post. I've recently completed my first board bow from American red oak in the style of a Powhatan bow collected in 1665 from Virginia. This bows inspiration is illustrated in the "Encyclopedia of Native American Bows Arrows and Quivers volume 1", and is one of my favorite bows in the volume for its elegant simplicity and practicality. Being located in New Zealand my access to good bow wood is limited so I thought I'd try my hand at making a board bow from red oak, next time I aim to make some more bows from European oak boards (Quercus Robur). The board itself had some very slight propeller twist and may look a little uneven in the braced picture.

The bow itself is 68 1/2" long being 1 11/16" wide at the handle 1 1/2" wide at the midlimb tapering to 3/4" pin nocks. I added a "Peck" mark to the middle of the bow's handle for identification on where to grasp. The bow was floor tillered to 8 inches or so of bend before having the belly tempered with a heat gun (I've recently begun belly tempering with coals) to improve performance and compression resistance. This was my first time working with oak and I was pleasantly surprised by the results as red oak's reputation preceded it as being prone to belly chrysals. The bow is very comfortable to shoot with good early draw tension and a snappy release, the set was very minimal even after 200 shots being around 1/2" an inch.

The bows entire build was documented and is available on YouTube if anyone wanted to check it out ( please forgive the shameless self promotion): https://youtu.be/ZiH7xWD0kH4

Thanks for reading and providing a place with such a vast amount of knowledge on this subject I sincerely appreciate it.
Cheers guys.

[GlisGlis]

great work 
a bow in its distilled essence
Can you feel it bend through the handle?

[Pappy]

Very nice bow, love the looks of that. 👍Pappy

[Pat B]

Nice Sudbury style bow with a nice bend. 
 I've heard some of the gum trees(Eucalyptus) make good bows and I believe you have locust planted there for erosion.

[bentstick54]

Very nice looking bow. Thanks for sharing, hope to see more in the future.

[Muskyman]

Great looking bow. Very nice video too.

[bjrogg]

Nice bend. So glad you shared it

Bjrogg

[willie]

Nice replication of a classic "primitive"
your youtube vid should be helpful for first timers as a buildalong
thanks for contributing so much with your first post.

[Threy Cameron]

great work 
a bow in its distilled essence
Can you feel it bend through the handle?

I really appreciate the kind words. Yes I can definitely feel it bend through the handle and fades. I left the handle tillering till last as to get it bending just right. The vast majority of the bend early on was focused around the midlimbs before being brought into the handle area during the last 3 inches or so of tillering.

[Threy Cameron]

Nice Sudbury style bow with a nice bend. 
 I've heard some of the gum trees(Eucalyptus) make good bows and I believe you have locust planted there for erosion.

I've heard of some stands of Black Locust on private land in different areas around NZ I'll have to look into that. We do have Black Maire as a good native bow wood here as well as some species of Kanuka or Manuka also curing some staves of Puriri so we'll see how that goes. Privet is another popular wood here for bowmaking, it was introduced some centuries ago and has become quite prolific and I hear makes a great bow.

[Threy Cameron]

Very nice looking bow. Thanks for sharing, hope to see more in the future.

Will definitely be sharing more in future now that I've broken the ice so to speak with this site. I'm currently working on some more red oak bows from the same board. They've been floor tillered and heat treated over coals and are being left to rehydrate for some days before work continues. One is a Sudbury style bow the other is a similar design to the one posted except with a a narrowed and deepened handle for my brother.

[Threy Cameron]

Nice replication of a classic "primitive"
your youtube vid should be helpful for first timers as a buildalong
thanks for contributing so much with your first post.

Thankyou I'm quite happy with how the bow turned out as a first with a board bow and oak. Yes hopefully the YouTube video can inspire or demonstrate some good techniques to others and help them get into the art. No worries at all I've been reading and taking notes from this site for quite some time and decided it was about time I posted something myself.

[Hamish]

Greetings, Nice result with the red oak. What other Northern hemisphere timbers do your suppliers stock?

About 10 or 15years ago on here I was talking to another NZ bowyer. He had a local source for greenheart timber, large old cants used for building maritime docks. He also mentioned that Yew is growing in some churchyards.

Black Maire is the best native timbers that I have heard grows in NZ. I'm guessing its not the easiest tree to find?

I would keep a look out, make contact with arborists. Lots of pretty and useful garden trees from the northern hemisphere make excellent bows. Oak, ash, elm, apple, crab apple, plum and other fruitwoods.

[sleek]

Welcome to the site! Thank you for joining and for posting these bows! Oh man is it nice to see a fully heat treated bow! That thing is absolutely beautiful! You should make a post  about one of these bow and post the link into consideration for Octobers bow of the month contest.

[Threy Cameron]

Greetings, Nice result with the red oak. What other Northern hemisphere timbers do your suppliers stock?

About 10 or 15years ago on here I was talking to another NZ bowyer. He had a local source for greenheart timber, large old cants used for building maritime docks. He also mentioned that Yew is growing in some churchyards.

Black Maire is the best native timbers that I have heard grows in NZ. I'm guessing its not the easiest tree to find?

I would keep a look out, make contact with arborists. Lots of pretty and useful garden trees from the northern hemisphere make excellent bows. Oak, ash, elm, apple, crab apple, plum and other fruitwoods.

Appreciate it man Thank You. I usually get my boards from a supplier here in NZ called BBS Timbers, they have a bunch of native timers here as well as the northern species. For northern species they have Black Walnut, Black Cherry, Hard Maple, White Ash, White Oak (Red Oak is included in these piles), European Beech, French Oak and Sapele Mahogany. They also have a bunch of exotic hardwoods from South America like Kwila, Purple Heart, Green Heart, Tonka and various Gums from Australia.

I've heard about Yew in some Churchyards though the trees themselves are quite large but rare. I've also heard about some Yew being found in nearby forests from seed spread by birds though this is even more rare. I would love to work with some Yew someday though I would have to update my respirator for the dust.

Black Maire is the best native I've tested so far though similar to Osage it can grow wonky if out in the open. Though if in a forested grove it can grow straight and tall as it reaches for sunlight. It depends where you look, I'm blessed to live on a large farm that backs onto a mountain range consisting of around 30 square kms. So far I've found around 70 Black Maire trees or so in an area of a square km or so which is quite rare as its not the most common tree. The majority of said trees aren't suitable for bowmaking but there are some great specimens in there, the real hard bit would be getting the wood out with the terrain their located in. Though I want to experiment more with board bows first before deciding whether to harvest one or two.

I will definitely keep my eyes peeled for some great bow species. There is one particularly large Oak at my friends place that I am currently seeing if the owner would be interested in a little pruning in exchange for a bow or two.