Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: bigcountry on August 02, 2009, 04:33:51 pm
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I have a bunch of black locust staves I cut last year. I was thinking of laying out a design on two or three of em. I already chased a ring. Would 1.75" be too narrow for a 68" black locust for 29" draw? I was thinkin of limb designe being 1.75" about 12" up the limb, then pyamiding to 1/2" tips. Would 2" be safer?
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That should be pretty good for a design. Make sure that's 68 in ntn.
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Its going to be 67" NTN. I cut these staves too short. I really wanted them 70". Thats the reason I thought about making them 2" wide. I guess I could rough em out to 2" and later change my mind when I flloor tiller.
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Start out at 2" and if the limbs begin to get too thin reduce the width some as you tiller.
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Start out at 2" and if the limbs begin to get too thin reduce the width some as you tiller.
Good idea.
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ok stupid question. i want to know for sure what locust is what. big long thorns / short thorns. big long seed pods dark in color??? i have lots of both locust, but hear one is one and one is another ??? what one are we talking about ???
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Black locust does not have thorns on the trunk. Honey locust does. Jawge
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I always get confused on which had the thorns on what part. ???
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Honey locust is the one with the big long clusters of thorns on the trunk and long seedpods. Black locust only has thorns on saplings and twigs of older trees, hardly any on the mature trees. Black locust thorns are flat and triangular-kinda like overgrown blackberry thorns. BL has small, flat seedpods about 2-3" long, but the ones on honey locust can be a foot long.
As for the bow, 1 3/4" should be plenty wide. I've found that making them narrower and thicker they are less likely to hinge and chrysal than making them wide and thin. The last couple locust bows I've made have been about 1 5/8" out of the fades. Locust also works great for long, narrow, bend-through-the handle bows (Cherokee/Eastern Woodland flatbows.)
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I am rather confused. I thought the rule of thumb for a wood that chysals easy is to make it wide and longer than normal. or is wider only for reducing set? Sounds like BL is in a league of its own like Yew.
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big, you have it right. Make it wider and longer. The only drawback to making it wider is that wide bows can be a little harder to tiller than narrow ones. BL needs to have a nearly perfect tiller. Now as Pat noted, if the wood doesn't respond to belly removal and seems to be getting too thin, which can bring with it the possibility of hinging, then the limbs can be narrowed a little bit to bring the tiller home. I've only had to do that on reflexed bows. Jawge
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Jawge, I know you were scraping locust before I ever seen a bow, but I've honestly had nothing but trouble out of wide, thin limbed locust bows. Chrysal, chrysal, chrysal. Locust was used for hundreds of years by the Indians around here as their choice bow wood, and most of their bows were in the inch to inch-and-a-quarter width range (bending handle.) Probably my tillering skills or lack of, but locust is so dense that I always wind up with really thin limbs at those wide widths to get a 50 lb bow, and those thin limbs are really sensitive to the slightest irregularity and want to hinge and twist on me. I never made a decent shooter from locust until I started experimenting with narrower limbs. I agree with the make it longer part.
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Hillbilly, there's a lot to be said for that design that you like. Very interesting. I'll try it on BL sometime. I've actually had less chrysalling when I went to wider limbed BL bows about 65-66 in. ntn for a 26 in. draw. That may be a function of just getting better at tillering though as I continued to learn more years ago than I care to remember. LOL. Too much longer than that won't do for hunting around here. The woods are too thick. I do like the idea of starting wide and narrowing the limbs as the bowyer proceeds all the while watching how the wood responds. Admittedly, that takes experience. It has been more than a few years since I made a BL bow. I've gotta get back to my roots. BTW I think Tim Baker wrote about using 1 5/8 in wide for BL but I found that too narrow for the BL in my yard. Now that we have thoroughly confused the beginners...Well, I guess they'll have to experiment and find what works for them. After all that's what we did. :) Jawge
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Jawge, Hillbilly, that has to be the politest disagreement I've ever seen on any forum. It's guys like you, who make this site a joy to visit. Thank you.
I, too, have a BL stave sitting here in my office. I've just started chasing the ring on it. It will be somewhere around 65" ntn. I was wondering what dimentions would work best to get a Cherokee d-bow out of it. While you two had different thoughts with pro's and con's for both, your information was quite value.
Good thing I have about 10 BL staves to work with. haha But, first I'll be practicing by making a hickory d-bow. Then probably a hickory backed sassafras of undecided style.
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Locust seems to be really variable wood, too-some of it is similar to osage, and some is pure junk. Now if I could figure out how to tell the difference "on the hoof." There may be regional variation also.
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Yup, Hillbilly, you southern boys (south of RI is south for me. LOL.) just don't know how to grow good BL. Hedge, 10 staves will allow you considerable learnin' wood. I'm surprised you found some trees in KY to cut. Seal the ends. I leave the bark on. If you remove it also remove the sapwood and seal the back. I love KY. My brother and his family are at this very time moving out of KY and heading to Mississippi. In his area there were few trees anywhere. Good deer population? I should have gone there to hunt a time or 2 but...Jawge
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Jawge, when we bought our farm 10 years ago, it was a cow pasture with very few trees mostly along the fence rows. We built the our house next to the only "shade trees" in an open field. They were 2 BL and a nasty tangled mess of osage. haha. The ice storm this past winter uprooted about 10 BL ranging from 6 to 12" in diameter. That's where me stave came from. There's few deer on my farm. You're welcome to come down and hunt.
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Thanks, my friend. That's generous. We saw a gigantic osage on some fort. I can't remember the name of it. Jawge
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Exercise those limbs!! Ill measure the one i made and post dimensions but it was really pretty thin limbed, and tried to make it slightly trapped with the belly being ever so slightly wider than the back... It still shooting well, and plan to hunt it this fall.
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,13264.0.html
Good luck
Mike
Ill post dimensions if I ever get off this job location.
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Locust seems to be really variable wood, too-some of it is similar to osage, and some is pure junk. Now if I could figure out how to tell the difference "on the hoof." There may be regional variation also.
The stuff with the really pronounced growth rings seems best to me. If it is an older tree and the growth rings seem kinda faint without much "grit" to the slow growth wood, the stave is not for me.
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Yeah I have two nice logs I just saved from a wood pile on a build site. It kills me when I see them knocking down trees and then they just pile them up, wait for them to dry and burn them. I was lucky to be in the area when I saw them starting to knock them down and asked the guy if I could cut a few down before they got started. Big thick rings on these boys I can hardly wait till they dry.