Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Taxus brevifolia on June 12, 2018, 08:54:30 pm
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Talk about straight and clear...very hard to find in juniper, nearly as rare as straight/clear yew. that's because it's not juniper but incense cedar
6'6" long. One side is completely clear; the other has knots on the upper half, but will produce limbs for splicing.
Thanks to this forum, or I would not have even thought of splicing, I'd have left that half in the woods...I love you guys!!!!
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The top picture is a danger to the community, everyone is going to start drooling on their keyboards.
Any plans for what you want to make yet?
That is quite the find congratulations!
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AGAIN?! You are far too lucky
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Lol thanks guys. Luck plays a role, but also a lot of sweat. I had to look at a lot of trees today over a large area to find this one. I expect there are enough staves in it to try my hand at a few different designs. But I need to come to terms with some kind of bowyer bench. The stavemasters are available again, can't afford one yet so I guess I'll make do with a homemade shave horse. (Still need to make it). I've got several staves now roughed out as far as I dare go with hatchet & sandpaper. Soon as I set up a bench I'll get after them with the draw knife. Meanwhile, guess I'll get this new juniper split into billets and cleaned up.
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If you have a little $$ to spend you can buy a portable workbench and a couple portable vices to clamp onto it. The pic shows the setup I use. It is nice because when I am asked to teach classes or do demos I can take it with me and setup on-site.
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Do you anchor the workmate down somehow? I tried using one of those and I just dragged it all over the yard.
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I'm saving for a stavemasters, but until then I'll make do with material I have around the place. I have a workmate, I'll see about that
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I love making bows, don't doubt that but those photos remind me of the best part of this hobby
The Hunt!
Wandering through the countryside searching for that stave, at one with nature.
Then the thrill when you find something, cut and haul it out
It doesn't get any better than that!
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My sentiments exactly! I'm taking things one step at a time. I've become adept at the harvest, and I'm pretty good at roughing out. Once I get it together with a bench, I'mma get good at tillering, though I figure that'll take awhile to master
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Do you anchor the workmate down somehow? I tried using one of those and I just dragged it all over the yard.
I will step on the step that is near the ground to hold things steady. That seems to be enough.
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Well get this guys: After my vine maple-big leaf maple mix up, it crossed my mind to confirm this one...according to plantsnap, it's not juniper, but incense cedar. Calocedrus decurrens.
So I guess I'll find out if incense cedar makes a decent bow. It sure looks like juniper. Glad I checked, I'll start confirming before I post. I was quite surprised, as it so closely resembles confirmed juniper I've harvested. I think though it's a different species, it's clearly very closely related and my hope is that it shares the desirable qualities.
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+1 for Eric's foot anchoring method. Useable when you can't find a more secure method.
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AGAIN?! You are far too lucky
I think ya jinxed it.
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Wikipedia says yes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calocedrus_decurrens#Native_Americans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calocedrus_decurrens#Native_Americans)
In another page it says The Washo people from near Lake Tahoe used small limbs of the Incense Cedar for bows.
So I suppose it is worth a try
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It makes sense to me they would being using more limbs than trunks. It's a lot more work to get at the trunk! I have a good feeling about it, despite the mis-ID
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Incense cedar is an excellent bow wood on par or better than juniper since it has the same compressive abilities of juniper, but none of the defects commonly found in juniper. It tends to grow straight rather than twisted and the trunk is largely branch free in older trees. The growth rings are tight like juniper and the density is about the same. That does not look like the incense cedar I've used before here in Taiwan, but it doesn't look exactly like Western Juniper either. There tends to be little to no distinction between the sapwood and heartwood on incense cedar (or at least it is very gradual as it changes) whereas juniper is normally quite clearly defined in most species. Western Juniper is more brownish while eastern varieties and RMJ have the purple heartwood. One easy way to distinguish the two is smell. You can smell the leaves before harvesting or the wood after harvesting. The smell is clearly definable between the two. Incense cedar smells sort of like sandalwood and cypress mixed together. Juniper smells like gin in the leaves or berries and well, the wood is hard to describe. Either way, there are plenty of examples of it being used to make bows the same as you would use juniper or yew in a short, sinew-backed bow and from experience, it works the same, so count yourself lucky. It is one of those not-so-often spoken of treasures because it is very restricted to a certain geographic region. I believe the main reason for using limbs compared to the trunk traditionally was ease of harvesting and curing as well as tighter growth rings. Perhaps compression wood found in the limbs was also desired.
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Well shoot, looks like you just became very lucky ;D
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Do you have any pictures of the leaves? Juniper and incense cedar leaves are distinctly different.
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Where did you cut?
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Bryce, Klamath County Oregon.
High Desert, here's a leaf pic
Ryan, yes I'm pretty lucky!!!
Limbit, thank you for making my day! Now that I'm cutting into it I can see the difference from juniper, but it's close.
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Here is video of the best piece:
https://youtu.be/6ppS-eSt8io
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oh yeah, that's incense cedar for sure. I look forward to seeing what you will do with it. Keep us posted
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Yep, that's incense cedar. The region you are in is one of the few areas in the US that has it growing. You can try just about any style of bow with it, but like I said, it works best in the same applications as juniper. I made a boo-backed long-bow out of it long before I realised much about the wood and it was nice, but I found it needs to be kept wide, not narrow because the wood is so soft that it'll move around on you quite easily. It kept wanting to change string angle because the tips were too narrow and the wood too soft. Be careful to laminate some wood or horn on the knocks too since the wood is soft and will chip right off if not careful. Like juniper, it dries quick, but doesn't check much if any.
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I feel like I'm among the luckiest alive
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Here we go. It's going to be a 62" ntn, sinew-backed Hupa type. I know they were shorter than that, but this beautiful piece of wood fell in my lap and I already cut it down from over 72". So 64" it is, 1¾" wide at the handle, 2¼" wide at mid-limb
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I love incense cedar. It was the favorite wood for the Miwok hook nocked bows. I have made quite a few replicas. The trunk wood is even lighter than rocky mt and Utah juniper. It is just as good compression as juniper and like juniper is weak in tension. A heavy sinew backing makes the best bow. The branches are better as the rings grow much closer so the wood is heavier. I prefer the top side of the branch as it starts with a heavy reflex. Just use the unbroken ring under the bark for the back. The limbs make a beautiful sapwood back with darker heartwood bellies. The trunk will make a great bow too and it's easy to find lots of straight trunks.
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Thanks Chuck! I'm quite excited to have stumbled onto this treasure. It sure is cooperative in the rough stages. Next to my roughed-in juniper staves, it shows off how straight it is
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Bryce, Klamath County Oregon.
High Desert, here's a leaf pic
Ryan, yes I'm pretty lucky!!!
Limbit, thank you for making my day! Now that I'm cutting into it I can see the difference from juniper, but it's close.
Hmm hard to run into that stuff with all the juniper that’s so prevalent in that area.
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Yes one more factor that led to mis-ID