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Hickory-black cherry-jatoba-black palm, 42#@28"

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bentstick54:
That’s a real great looking bow. Let’s hope it holds up.

Jim Davis:
According to the Wood Database, black palm should behave  about like the hickories.

Del the cat:
Sweet...
Del

Hamish:
Spectacular looking bow!

Black palm has a long, successful history as a bow wood(grass). It has been used by natives in South America, and areas in the Pacific, unbacked.

It was also used as a belly wood lamination in the 1940's just before fibre glass took over, all wood bows.

I suspect your bow might be a little more sluggish than ideal, due to the length, as black palm is quite a dense, heavy material. I don't think you need to worry about it holding up.

I have toyed with palm, for a bow, just not black palm. The stave was pretty crooked, deflexed, from memory it didn't respond very well to heat corrections, so it didn't get very far. It did bend very well without breaking, the piece I had just wasn't a very good stave for bow building, light in colour, lots of punky filler material, rather than tightly packed dark fibers.

Yes, it is very unpleasant to work, hard on tools too.

Tuomo:
Thank you!

Black palm is a generic name, there are many genera of "black palms" and thus many, many different species, which have different properties. Like "hickory" or "elm" for example. The material I used is one kind of "black palm" but I think that it is not the best black palm available. This material feels a bit brittle.

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