Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Chuck.e.b on October 04, 2019, 01:24:07 am
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Looking to build my second bow. I want it to be juniper. Been scouting for trees lately and found a few good ones, one of them being pretty large. Is it better to build one out of a branch or the main tree for juniper. Looking to go unbacked 30” draw at 50#, maybe 64-68” long, depending. Thanks.
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From what I know, Juniper is pretty and pretty snappy if it works out in the end. It does however seem to like blowing up.
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I recently finished a 60" tip to tip, 45# at 28", One-seed Juniper that I backed with rawhide. I made it from a 3" diameter branch or trunk from the tree. One-seed is a little different in that it seems to have multiple trunks, or a main trunk and other occasional vertical branches. I'm not sure which.
It's a visually beautiful wood. The bow ended up with a belly of mostly heartwood but edges of white sapwood along both edges. One limb had some unhelpful movement in the grain so my decrowning wasn't perfect, but I'm not seeing or hearing any issues with it. Between the rawhide and the relatively light weight it's doing very well, and is a pleasure to shoot.
Which type of juniper are going to use? The juniper I've seen in southern Arizona, mostly one-seed and Alligator, can be a challenge to find an appreciable length without twist or knots, mostly knots. I suggest that if you can find a good branch to meet your needs use it first. See what it does, see how you do. Cutting a limb won't kill the tree but cutting the trunk would. A lot of junipers are hundreds of years old. If you can find a straight one that'll give you 68" staves guard it carefully and be sure before you cut it.
And, just to be safe back it with rawhide at least.
My wife is a big fan of bow building now thanks in some part to the smell of juniper in my shop while I was working on this bow.
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most Juniper bows are backed because they don't have as good of tension(?) People say that a sinew backed juniper bow is top notch!
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yup. Sinew back it. I made a short (for me) bow with utah juniper, and backed it with three layers of sinew--even not knowing really what I was doing that bow takes an incredible amount of bend.
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Juniperus scopulorum, Rocky Mountain Juniper. Are the branches better because they’re more flexible than the heartwood of a big trunk? Yes snappy and fast.
I’d love to see pics if anyone’s got them, please? ;D
I do have some hide from my deer this year but am trying to make a bow as close I can to a Ute style. I know sometimes they used rawhide/sinew when it was available. I plan on making the bow from my hunt area this year and taking an animal next season in the same area. There is actually a old game drive spot the natives would use in the area. They would post up at the top near the base of this cliff and the others would drive deer and elk up to them. You can still find arrowheads up there.
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I think the branches will give you a faster bow because of the tighter growth rings. Another method is to carve the stave out of a large trunk (not a single knot when you do this) and split it off. Ended up with a clean stave-knotless of sapwood that made a fine bow. This style of harvesting a bow has been documented in Nevada in prehistoric times. The removal scars are still present with the basalt stone wedge and hammerstone still sitting in the tree! Here is the URL:
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https://escholarship.org/content/qt4v5249w9/qt4v5249w9.pdf
It appears the wood was left on the trunk to season ,I took it off in once sitting, and it seasoned at home.
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If you use deer rawhide, you might want to think it down a bit first, apparently their hides are too thick and heavy left raw. For branches, as long as it’s clean, the it will work. There’s something called reaction wood to but I’m not smart enough to explain it.
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Hi, Chuck. I'll be following this thread with interest, as RMJ is about the only decent bow wood that's common around here (western Wyoming), and I've been thinking about it for a long time. It's a fairly soft wood, prone to dings and scratches, which might be why it was/is usually backed? But there is nothing prettier than RMJ sapwood.
Good luck--Thomas
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Juniper is backed because it has awful tension strength, but its compression strength is very good. The sinew and juniper compliment each other perfectly.
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Juniper is backed because it has awful tension strength, but its compression strength is very good. The sinew and juniper compliment each other perfectly.
That makes sense. Rawhide backing doesn't add any tension strength, but only makes bows less prone to breaking, correct?
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I think the branches will give you a faster bow because of the tighter growth rings. Another method is to carve the stave out of a large trunk (not a single knot when you do this) and split it off. Ended up with a clean stave-knotless of sapwood that made a fine bow. This style of harvesting a bow has been documented in Nevada in prehistoric times. The removal scars are still present with the basalt stone wedge and hammerstone still sitting in the tree! Here is the URL:
.
https://escholarship.org/content/qt4v5249w9/qt4v5249w9.pdf
It appears the wood was left on the trunk to season ,I took it off in once sitting, and it seasoned at home.
I have read that paper any number of times and it just plains crans my heart rate every time! I am torn between wanting to go out and find one of those mother trees and harvest a slab or two and not wanting to mess with the rather sacred history that they represent.
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That's for sure! With the amount of junipers growing out there and your good moral compass, I think you can avoid one that a native may have used. I understand where your' coming from though!
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That’s amazing info in that paper. A lot to take in. Seeing that they used staves from the trunk this has set me straight. Thanks.
My thought is what did they do before they had sinew? They had to make it work somehow. Im not looking for one that lasts forever just a few hunting seasons hopefully.
I’ll be out this weekend, I’ll post my find if I settle on something.
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That's for sure! With the amount of junipers growing out there and your good moral compass, I think you can avoid one that a native may have used. I understand where your' coming from though!
Some of those trees had lived so long that the renewal scars on the edges of the cuts were repeatedly harvested. THAT is the stuff that tempts me.
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Juniper is backed because it has awful tension strength, but its compression strength is very good. The sinew and juniper compliment each other perfectly.
That makes sense. Rawhide backing doesn't add any tension strength, but only makes bows less prone to breaking, correct?
That's correct, less prone to breaking or if it breaks it's more likely to hold the otherwise flying sharp jagged edges together.
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That’s amazing info in that paper. A lot to take in. Seeing that they used staves from the trunk this has set me straight. Thanks.
My thought is what did they do before they had sinew? They had to make it work somehow. Im not looking for one that lasts forever just a few hunting seasons hopefully.
I’ll be out this weekend, I’ll post my find if I settle on something.
I suspect they knew how to use sinew before they invented bows. I've never seen an ancient atl atl dart, but I bet they were held together with sinew too.
This is a really interesting thread...and it's going to be interesting to see what you come up with.
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That's for sure! With the amount of junipers growing out there and your good moral compass, I think you can avoid one that a native may have used. I understand where your' coming from though!
Some of those trees had lived so long that the renewal scars on the edges of the cuts were repeatedly harvested. THAT is the stuff that tempts me.
For sure, there is definitely the possibility of picking one previously harvested without knowing.
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There have been ancient darts found in ice fields with the sinew intact.
paste the link and remove the spaces in www
https://ww w.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-atlatl-ice-patches-1.4809947
keep in mind that backing a bow with rawhide to help prevent a tension failure on the back has merit. the bow is essentially designed as a wood bow, and the rawhide, while it works some, is not considered a major working element of the design. It could be regarded as "insurance"., and the design length needs to be appropriate for the desired draw length.
A sinew back bow typically has substantially more sinew, such that the sinew provides all that is needed to let the back bend, and then some. these designs can be shorter for their drawlength.
you could use sinew for backing or insurance in place of rawhide, but it might be better saved for a bow that was designed to utilize it better.
Branches have a different kind of wood than trunks, orientation matters, as the topside of the branch is different from the bottomside.
Hope someone who has built a bow from juniper branchwood can comment more about your design.
Will it bend through the handle?
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My first attempt to post photos so bear with me. My one-seed Juniper bow, rawhide backed. I turned them horizontal to save space.
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The belly
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I know they used sinew on the short bows historically. I was thinking a pyramid style flat bow design unbacked upwards of 64”. I’ve seen a couple posted here in image search results on google but its from almost 10 years ago. Not sure if there still on the forums but I know it can be done. Maybe I just make both styles. ;)
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Nice looking bow. Thanks for sharing.
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Nice bow. A guy on Leather Wall has posted Texas Juniper self bows. They looked to be very nice bows.If it acts like ERC it would be a challenge to make it as a self bow. I have read that the ratio of sinew to Juniper on Cal. style bows was one third sinew ,and two thirds wood. Interesting post. Cutting staves from tree trunks with out killing the tree speaks volumes about our Natives.
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Here’s some of my finds. Sapsucker damaged, otherwise would’ve been pretty good.
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This one I really liked. Side with red line would be back. Natural reflex to it. Not sure if this would help or hurt with junipers tension problems.
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This one would have a deflex on back.
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This one wasn’t too bad. Had a little bit if sapsucker damage.
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Biggest juniper I found. Too big to cut down. But maybe could try to use live stave technique or use a branch. Probably 35ft tree.
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Last one. Nothing special about this one. Looks like it would work though.
These pics are best out of about the 25 trees I found and looked at.
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Thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!
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This one I really liked. Side with red line would be back. Natural reflex to it. Not sure if this would help or hurt with junipers tension problems.
This looks like it might be a good one, but is that a knot about half up the left side? The bark looks fairly straight, but if it’s anything like alligator juniper it can have some big twist regardless of the bark, not to mention buried knots. On a positive note, the bend is excellent. My bow had one end with a natural reflex. I used a steam box to bend the rest of the bow and it worked well, but the reflex at the tip that I steamed in pulled out after shooting it a while, as did the overall reflex. But, the end with the natural reflex/recurve is still holding. Sinew probably would have helped hold the reflex.
My juniper is different, but it took me about 20 trees to find a suitable piece. I did find a tree or two that had a nice full trunk, but I didn’t have the heart to cut it down. At least until I have more experience with it and know that I will use it for all it has.
Good luck, keep us posted.
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Had to resize image so went back to original and no it’s just a small twig and bark peeling.
Good to know about the reflex. Yeah I feel the same way about the big one.
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Wow, Chuck, you sure have me thinking! Good luck and keep us posted. T
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chuck
a couple of things to keep in mind when selecting staves from a leaning tree.
the compression side of the tree, (the side facing the ground) is often different from the tension side,(the side facing the sky)
Generally, conifers make compressionwood on the ground side to enable the tree to deal with the lean induced stress. While hardwoods make tensionwood on the sky side to help with the same.
as you might imagine, having compressionwood on the belly might be a plus, but that is not easily accomplished as the back of the bow has to come from somewhwere in the middle of the stave.
having tension wood as the belly could be dissapointing, hence I would be inclined to avoid the tree you describe as having deflex on the back.
that being said I, must qualify my response by saying junipers are not like most conifirs in many ways, and my experience with them is none, so comments from anyone with specific juniper experience would be welcome.
I do know from experience that trees with compression wood or tension wood (known collectively as reaction wood), do not make good bows if the bows back comes from the side of the tree such that one edge of the back has reactionwood of one kind, and the other edge, the other kind. Hope that is not too confusing.
On thing you might want to try to do before cuttting a live leaning curved tree, is to examine a crossection of a similar juniper (perhaps by cutting a dead one?)
the foregoing is also something you would want to consider about branch wood also. Since the NA bow makers are reported to have utilized branch wood for staves, understanding where the best compression quality wood come from might be worth some investigation. Although I know that you are not building a sinew backed bow as the NA often did, having a good belly is always to be desired, as it is where most flatbows reach their limit by taking set or othewise failing.
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Thanks for the info willie!
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Here’s what I ended up with for a stave. It has some prop twist, a bit of a c curve, and a knot here or there...classic mountain juniper..fun fun. I plan on making a steam tube here soon and building a form.
I’ve researched some about getting out prop twist, some used a plumbers wrench with a form.
What do you guys suggest?
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I use a large Cresent wrench with a piece of leather for protection. Pipe wrench's teeth were too aggressive for my liking. Now that you've tapered the limb some be aware that it isn't going to untwist evenly. The thinner tip will twist more. If you can do it in a few steps starting from the fades you can control how it untwists. Hope you followed that :D
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I use a large Cresent wrench with a piece of leather for protection. Pipe wrench's teeth were too aggressive for my liking. Now that you've tapered the limb some be aware that it isn't going to untwist evenly. The thinner tip will twist more. If you can do it in a few steps starting from the fades you can control how it untwists. Hope you followed that :D
Good call on the crescent wrench. What kind of form do you use to hold it? Wish I new about the tapering part, dang..I only did that because I read less wood will be easier to move.
So it appears I could untwist only one limb to make it straight, starting at the middle of the fade on up. Are you staying multiple hearings and work my up the limb? Thanks
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Heatings* not hearings
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If I'm just taking twist out I grab the handle in the vice and put a support under the bow where the wrench goes. Put a bag around the part I want to heat and pour the steam to it.
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Built a setup for steam bending and straightened this thing out best I could. Before then after. I actually used a ratcheted strap and got the propeller twist to a manageable place with wrenches and weight.
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I've long thought the combo of juniper and sinew can make the most efficient bow out there. I tested this at the flight shoot on the Bonneville salt flats this year. My 60" sinew backed rocky mt juniper sapwood bow holds 2 world records in the 70# primitive simple composite field now. 343 yards with a flight arrow and 264 yards with a broadhead arrow. One of the best compression woods in the world but sucks in tension. If you live in a humid environment you can get away with a self bow. Here in Utah it is too dry to have a juniper self bow that lasts.
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I've long thought the combo of juniper and sinew can make the most efficient bow out there. I tested this at the flight shoot on the Bonneville salt flats this year. My 60" sinew backed rocky mt juniper sapwood bow holds 2 world records in the 70# primitive simple composite field now. 343 yards with a flight arrow and 264 yards with a broadhead arrow. One of the best compression woods in the world but sucks in tension. If you live in a humid environment you can get away with a self bow. Here in Utah it is too dry to have a juniper self bow that lasts.
Chuck, regarding a sinew backed bow, whats your opinion of ratio of sapwood to heartwood, does it matter? I have a few staves that taken down to bow dimensions are mostly sap...
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Northheart- I've made all sapwood, all heartwood and various ratio mixes. As far as performance the all sapwood bows are best. Unlike yew, I have found the heartwood to be no faster or better in compression. The sapwood is a little lighter than heartwood. I think this is why it will shoot a little further. My favorite stave is the unbroken sapwood layer under the bark. For a hunting bow or everyday shooter I will say a heartwood belly of purple or brown adds beauty to the bow. Since juniper grows all around here I've gotten picky and almost only use perfect knot free staves now. I have used the Native stave removal method on large live trees and it works well. I cut a notch on the bottom and top of where I will remove the stave and come back a year or so later to extract it. Not sure if waiting a year makes it any easier. The bottom notch will not halt growth of the stave on the tree. It does not season on the tree. It still needs to be seasoned at home, but only takes a month around here. Less if it's all the way down to bow size.
Chuck(the other one)- Nice work with that stave. When juniper is green it can be steam shaped like clay. When it is seasoned it will crack when steaming in shape, but soaking the near bow size stave for just a couple days rehydrates it to steam shape again. It takes in water when soaked at least 3x faster than hard woods.
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Interesting. When I get around to doing this someday, I want to use heartwood, or a combination, just because it's so dang pretty! Would I be right assuming the performance difference with sinew backing would be minimal?
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Sapwood is not much different than heartwood in performance as long as it has a sinew back. Not really noticeable and yes it is cool looking heartwood.
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My favorite stave is the unbroken sapwood layer under the bark.
do you keep the unbroken? (unblemished outermost ring?) of sapwood on the belly,and apply the sinew to younger wood from inside the stave?
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Younger wood from the inside of a stave??
It would be neat to try adding sinew to the inside of a stave, but i stick with the back being the back for ring orientation and a back that does not cut through the grain.