Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: tom sawyer on July 22, 2014, 08:59:53 pm
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This will be the story of my attempt to make a mulberry longbow. The wood came from an older tree growing in an old cemetery that I lived across from. It was pushing over the headstone of on George Washington, who happened to be the fire chief of Hannibal in the early 1900s. I asked the arborist for the butt log and he was only too happy to comply. I tried to make a few bows with this wood and they all broke so I'm not getting my hopes up too much. This last attempt is using a set of sister billets, they are well seasoned now since the tree WA s cut nearly 10 yr ago.
I cut the Z splices for these billets for a mojam demo, and glued them with resort ol last night. Everything went well save for one little snafu. I forgot the billets were about 42" long, so the stave is 80" long! Little too long for me. I'd cut it down but the tips have a wonderful little flip so I'm going to cut the splice out and re-splice. That or I can just make a pole vault pole.
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A little long for the "tall as the man" rule of thumb.
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This may work to my advantage since I think I may use an elb style rather than American longbow. This stuff is light as yew.
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If they have been breaking you may be better off going with the longer length. Will Thompson shot a bow 6' 6" long.
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I'll keep my eye on this, I saw you cutting those out!
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Hadn't seen you on in a while Lennie,good to see ya back. :) I am also working on a Mullberry,not quite as long tho. ;) ;D ;D You are right,light as a feather. :)
Pappy
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I mostly lurk Pappy, I go in spurts on making stuff these days. Spend more time processing wood than building bows.
6'6" is one long bow!
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If they were tension failures then you may want to consider a shallow D section bow.
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Unfortunately I don't recall what the failures were due to Marc, it may well be that I was trying to use a design ill-suited to a lightweight wood like this. I'm going to try a true longbow design with the cross-section you mention. I may even back it, I have rawhide in the shop although I don't know if the strips are 36" long. That'd probably be a wise move.
Respliced the bow last night, so its now about 72". I made the splice 1 1/4" wide this time so I can use that as my full width, which is very nearly as wide as the rest of the billet anyway. I pulled the clamps off this morning and set it out on the porch so it can finish curing in a nice warm spot.
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Good luck Lennie. I'll be watching this one too. I've got a Mulberry in my yard; just waiting till it gets a little bigger to cut. It's only about 6" in diameter right now.
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Yours should be getting close then, I prefer a younger smaller tree. 8" is great for hedge or any wood with a sapwood you're goign to remove. I think they tend to be stronger and have somewhat less diseases, inclusions etc.
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Hey Lennie,
I think an 80" long bow would have looked pretty cool. Looking forward to seeing where this goes Amigo.
Oh,I might have some 36" rawhide strips down in the shop. (If the mice didn't get them.. >:( )
I'll check and post later.
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Pulled out a pair of rawhide backings I got from Mike Yancey some time ago. 38" each, sweet. Roughed the shiny surface off the bow back, cut the backing strip to size and soaked in water, made up some hide glue from gelatin, sized the bow back and hide strip and applied then wrapped with string to hold it down. Seemed to work well, having enough glue let's you easily squeeze out air bubbles and extra glue. Also helps greatly if the hide isn't larger than the back.
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Pics.
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Sure are making some progress with this one. Looks good.
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Looks cool, I'll be watching the project. That 72" is still a long bow. What weight are you aiming for?
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I'm going to shoot for 45-50lb, I just don't see this wood producing a 60lber. If it turns out decent I might try my hand at a set of horn nocks. Thats something I haven't done, I have three sets of horn for these and it'd be good to try before I work on my yew.
I scratched up the bow back and rawhide surfaces with a hacksaw blade, and then realized that hide glue probably works best on smooth surfaces. I suppose getting any finish off is a good thing though, the bow was probably coated with a little shellac. I pulled the string off this morning and the rawhide seems to be stuck tight, didn't see any air bubbles either.
Paul, I'm trying to keep a little of that MOJAM excitement going and get something done for a change. The sinewed bow is drying up pretty well, didn't pull into a lot fo reflex though. Maybe I should've back-strung it a bit. I haven't done anything with the hackberry bow, I might toast the belly and slap a finish on it this weekend and call it done.
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Sounds cool, Tom Sawyer. I to am trying to keep up the excitement. Been xworking on some things a little myself. Might even get together with Eric on Saturday.
I'm waiting to see that sinew bow you done at mojam, I'm wanting to do another one myself.
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Here's the backing.
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That turned out real well Lennie.
This one and those other bow projects ought to keep you busy enough till next year's Mojam. ;)
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When I saw "George Washington Bow" I was sure it was going to be a post about a bow built from an illegally cut and pilfered Cherry tree!
OneBow
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Unlike GW, I can tell a lie. But this tree did push over GW's headstone. This was in an old Baptist cemetery that included graves of several Confederate soldiers, and a couple of Mark Twain's relatives. I lived across the street, and in spite of firing off black powder pistols and a couple of small incendiary devices, nobody complained. We also shot bows in the cemetary. It was a fun place.
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Cut the blank out and got it close to floor tillered.
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Front profile.
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nice one Lennie! You always do a great job on your demonstrations. Thanks my friend.
Bob
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Appreciate the kind words Bob. I'm doing this less as a demo, more as a way to keep notes for myself. And it also gives me an incentive to keep working on the project. I'm going on vacation later this week, I'm hoping to get a decent tiller on this by then.
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It sure is looking good Lennie. Hope you guys have fun on vacation.
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You certainly have that one coming along. I've had really bad luck (...aka inadequate skills) with Black Walnut myself. So, I'm excited to see you have success with it! :)
OneBow