Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Robert Pougnier on January 08, 2026, 10:38:18 pm
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I've been going through the dregs of my stave stock until I have more dry wood to work. Left now, I pretty much have all twisted, highly reflexed and knotty wood. Mostly species I don't usually work like oak, hickory and some maple. Anyways, It's been fun tinkering with wobbly wood and running into some tricky tillering gigs and surprise failures.
Here is a stave I've been working on the past couple weeks. I finally brought it to full draw today. It had a lot of deflexed portions in the limbs and some pretty significant propellers in each limb. It also has 6 knots total that I had to place carefully. I spent a few days straightening the deflex and twist out with dry heat and adding some reflex in the tips as well. It's regained some twist but mostly maintained a decent profile.
I was able to coax a bow out of it. The bow is 63" NTN and 1 3/4" wide at the fades, 1 3/8" midlimb and down to 1/2" tips. It draws 48# at 27 inches. 21.5 oz weight. I originally added over 2 inches of reflex knowing it would lose most of it. I was mostly wanting to even the deflexed portions out. It's kept a half inch total after tillering, immediately after unstringing. It holds one inch of reflex when fresh. It still has some twist and the string favors the shooting side so it's almost centershot.
You can still see some of the deflexed portions in the outer limbs at full draw and towards the inner limb on the lower limb. I put a full draw pic from each side so you can see the waviness better
I'll shoot it in tomorrow and may add some more heat to it, otherwise if it shoots nice I'll finish it up and post prettier pictures later.
Thanks for looking!
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More pics of the unworked stave and some of the character you can see how twisted one of the limbs is still toward the tip
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Good build with a challenging stave.
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Turned out very nice from a very challenging stave. That one had to definitely test your patience.
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Thank you. I just shot it this morning and put about 50 shots in. It's very snappy! It took a tiny bit of set, basically lost the reflex I induced and sits now at zero follow. I'm giving it a slight heat treatment to dry it out and even the strain a little before finishing it.
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Great job on that one Robert.
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Looks good, and since it performs well, what more could a person ask?
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Nice work Robert. I like the full draw.
Bjrogg