Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: bownarra on September 11, 2019, 07:32:42 am
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This is a bow I saved from becoming wood worm food :) I was going through a whole load of billets I had stashed in the rafters and hadn't looked at for years. There is some nice stuff that I had forgotten about. Anyway these billets had a few worm holes along one edge and of course I feared the worst...upon closer inspection I found for some reason they had only gone along the very edge of one of the billets. I was able to get rid of them on the first pass cleaning up the split corner.
The early/latewood ratio was pretty terrible and the rings were thin but overall the billets had a nice shape and a good ring when bounced end on off the floor. So I recurved them, heat treated the roughed out limbs into an elliptical reflex, spliced them in deflex with MT13 (excellent splice glue). The tips sat about 3 inches forward of the handle after all that.
I tillered it to 40#@28 due to the pretty poor wood. It now holds about 2 inches of reflex and shoots 10gpp at 175fps. Not bad but not great. The Elm here is a bit like that mostly excellent, some so so and some pretty poor :) Heat treating (however it is done wink wink) brings all of it up a notch. trapping the back is another great way to help with the compression but I kept it pretty tame on this one. With a good thick ring on the back I am happy to take the back down to 5/8th to 3/4 the width of the belly or find a high crowned piece to start with.
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Nice bow! I really like the dark color, glad you could save it! Can we get an unbraced and a full draw pic?
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Nice save... it obviously wanted to be a bow :)
Del
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That stain looks great with the zigzags. Elms my favorite even though the bark gives me a nasty rash. With elm it’s like the more I suffer carrying and splitting the better the wood is
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What's up with the leatherwall "bow" picture? Are we down to just risers representing the whole picture? lol
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More pictures
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A couple more.
I'll get round to a full draw picture tomorrow.
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Anyone who says elm is a second string wood, isn't educated in Elm. It isn't my favorite wood to make a bow from, but it is my favorite bow wood. And it doesnt take some top secret heat treat process to get those solid mid 170s-180s in the FPS. It just takes a decent knowledge of bow making. Looks like you got the touch.
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That's a nice one! The tips and arrow passes are pretty slick, and I'm sure it shoots great.
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Very nice and 175 fps is not shabby at all.
I've also found that a high crown with Elm is better
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now that i see it in all of its glory! im really liking it! it looks amazing!
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Beautifully done! That really looks nice!
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Kinda unfair of you to hold out on the full draw however... ;)
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Nice bow. Good looks, and good speed, and good bow wood.It's all good.
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great bow. I like it alot
I'm into basket weaving now and I've discovered how good elm is
Cordage made with elm bark are really strong.
i'm sure it is possible to obtain good usable strings for a hunting bow
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Really nice looking bow. If I were getting 175 from a selfbow I'd be extremely happy. That arrow pass and nocks look great also.
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Very nice indeed!