Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: DanD on January 02, 2016, 06:32:21 pm
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I have permission to cut as much honey locust as I want, but I'm new to the bowyer world and was wondering if it is good bow wood, I know Osage is king and find it difficult to get permission to harvest, there is Osage around my area but have not been successful in obtaining permission. So in the meantime honey locust the the wood available.
Dan
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I've worked with it a little bit but i wouldn't say it's good bow wood...It will make a bow. Make sure to overbuild it, flat and wide. It will tend to take set if you don't heat treat the belly and I've had problems with crysalling near knots.
That said it's a beautiful wood and a joy to work so if you can find good straight pieces it would be worth it to cut.
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its all in the tillering :) . Tony
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Tillering is the challenging part for me and the only way to learn is keep building bows. I think I will cut some in the next week or 2, do i need to let this season a year or can I rough out a bow and bring it in the house for 3 months or so before making a bow?
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If I had a super clean piece of wood with a low crown I might try it. I don't really consider honey locust to be a viable bow wood. Extra wide paddle type bow with a short draw can make a snappy shooter.
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"LOCUST, honey .66 A little less dense than black locust.. One of the prettier woods. Its sapwood is about twice as thick as that of black locust. Thorns grown on both trunk and branches"
From Tim Baker's article on bow wood.
I've never tried it but I've used quite a bit of black locust and wouldn't hesitate to try it if I came across some.
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it thats all you got,, then overbuild as suggested,,, but keep asking about the osage,, its not that hard to get permission to cut a limb or sapling,, :)
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Black locust and honey locust are in no way similar except both have thorns. I guess their leaves are somewhat similar but not quite.
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Good learning material for free.
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Pat, I will for sure keep looking for Osage, I do have about 18 hickory staves but thought about trying a different type of wood. I have 2 osage staves I bought off eBay but want to get my tillering skills better before doing those.
Thanks guys for the info on honey locust, any other info is welcome( limb width or limb thickness)
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Dan, the hickory is a great wood to learn on,, I would recommend learning on something that has a proven high rate of success,, :) you can fast cure it as well,, get your tillering up to speed,, and try the osage,,
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My hickory was cut April 2015 and I'm tillering my 2nd bow from hickory staves, taking my time with this 1, I still have it on the long string and when short braced will be using a pulley system this time instead of the tillering stick, hopefully get a little less set, right now it's 45 lbs at 18" on the long string.
Kinda off topic in that last paragraph,but I may just use my hickory and save all the work involved in cutting and slitting for Osage when I find some to cut.
Dan
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I've never made a bow out of honey locust....sorry,but have done black locust with success.I'm pretty sure honey locust is a little more brittle or not as elastic for a self bow so the limbs need to be wider than the black.Beautiful wood...salmon color and all.I got the feeling if you can get a honey locust to draw at least 26" consistently you'll have a very snappy shooting bow.Hickory has always been one of my favorites.It'll take extreme designs with minimal set if heat treated.Hard to break a hickory actually.Knock on wood....lol,but get it good and dry and I mean dry.Around 6 to 7 percent.
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I've made a couple bows from honey locust, the wood borers have been more of a problem for me than crysals. Otherwise a beautiful wood and easy to work.
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Honey locust is decent wood, but it is a step below good elm and hickory, to my mind. Treat it like white wood, not BL or mulberry or osage. Wide and flat, heat treated, etc. Small branchless trunks 5" or so across gave me my best success.
You can chase a ring of heartwood, and the heartwood is definitely harder, but you gain little as far as wood properties. Small trees often have a kind of mild hairpin zig-zag to them and that makes it hard to work down without hurting it. Also, and take this with a grain of salt, big tree trunks with wide rings often have much softer wood, almost like it is porous.
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Heat treat helps, ...but it is not as effective on Honey Locust as I had hoped it would be. Most of the heat treatment seemed to pull right back out as I used the bow. The suggestion to OVERBUILD is well made. Flat and wide as is practical for your purposes would be good. It works fairly easily, but if the wood is at all green, it will tend to pull fibrous strands out if your tools are not quite sharp. It does burnish very nicely and will get as slick as glass and have a sheen to the surface just from burnishing.
As has already been said, it's very pretty. Especially the heartwood/sapwood contrast. Unfortunately, you are not likely to have much if any heartwood in your bow as the sap wood is quite thick. The sapwood is so creamy white I can't imagine being able to chase a ring in it in order to keep more heartwood, ...but I suppose it could be done. I have built jewelry and trinket boxes with the staves I had that twisted up too much as they dried, and they were very pretty.
OneBow