Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Tuomo on November 21, 2025, 08:01:24 am
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My newest bow is another test piece. I found some black palm (Borassus flabellifer) and wanted to try it as a belly material. It has a very beautiful grain and appearance, it’s heavy, and it seemed like a promising material. So I made a long deflex–reflex design, minimally stressed, drawing 42 pounds at 28 inches.
From the back, the materials are hickory, sugar maple (powerlam), black cherry, jatoba, and black palm. The handle is also black palm, and the nocks are water buffalo horn. The finish is boat lacquer.
Length is 1870 mm (73.6") n/n, width 28 mm (1.1"), and mass 690 g (1.52 lb).
One special feature of this bow is the handle leather. It’s always quite difficult to shape leather around a pistol-grip handle. So instead of shaping it, I installed the leather “backwards,” putting the stitching on the palm side of the handle. I’m happy with the result — I can barely feel the seam. The material is vegetable-tanned leather.
Unfortunately, I’m a bit disappointed. The bow seems to be fast, but I think black palm is quite a mediocre belly material. Its grain texture is very coarse, and I’m afraid it may fail in the long term. It didn’t take much set, but somehow I just don’t like it as a belly material, something about the feel. Moreover, it was quite awkward material to work. I may make another bow in the future, a bit wider—let’s see.
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More pics.
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And the last pics.
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Regardless of performance, it’s absolutely gorgeous!At least at that length and draw weight it shouldn’t be very strained. I did a handle seam on the belly side once after I didn’t get a good fit with a seam on the back. I liked the small bit of texture. Felt like it helped the handle register a bit better.
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That's a real beauty, Toumo. I'm curious to see how the black palm holds up to the compression.
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That’s a real great looking bow. Let’s hope it holds up.
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According to the Wood Database, black palm should behave about like the hickories.
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Sweet...
Del
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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.
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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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The performance might not be what you wanted, but it is strikingly beautiful! Good work.