Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: SLIMBOB on June 26, 2019, 07:47:52 pm
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Nightmare is....a bit extreme. but this stave has some nightmarish qualities. I cut the tree in March of this year, sealed the ends and let it dry for a month whole. Then split it and peeled the bark. I lashed the 2 halves back together and kept in in my shop/garage/man cave to dry. About 6 weeks ago, I think, I took this half down to near bow blank size and moved it indoors to dry in the a/c. Tucked away in my spare closet where I keep my staves to dry. I pulled it out Sunday and it had warped like a pretzel. I thought it was dry enough not to do this, but I guess not huh. I reduced it down to floor tiller size and took the heat gun to it to straighten it back out and I think I have it pretty close. It has that little branch knob right in the handle, and I plan to use it as part of the arrow shelf if I can. You can see that it looks somewhat decent in profile from one side, but gawd-awful from the other. I'm either gonna deflex the reflex limb, or reflex the deflex limb and I'm not sure which yet. From all of the fine stuff Marc has written on Elm, this fits the description of the "good" stuff. It's American Elm. Little to no heart wood as it was a smallish tree. 5 inches at the base or so. Rings are consistent from end to end about 3/16 of an inch or so. Gotta figure out exactly what I will do with it but I have been excited to get it started. I have enjoyed doing these follow along's so I decided to give it another whirl. Any thoughts or suggestions are entirely welcome. Let's see what happens. ;D
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Side Profiles of the handle area.
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Very interesting stave! Good luck! :BB
Hawkdancer
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Nice! You got a good start straightening it. (-P
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Yeah, the straightening was a success on the first shot, which as you know, isn't always the case. Now , on to the fun stuff. I should get some time in on it this week.
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Good job so far. You like those Tee Pee creepers. I like mine. Arvin
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Yeah, these are 10 years old and and I can barely tell they're on. Thanks Arvin.
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Yeah, that is a "Freddy Kreuger" stick if ever I saw one.
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Haven't had a lot of time off last few weeks, but took half a day today. I wanted to fix my screw up on this. In trying to reflex one limb at the handle to match the other, it cracked. Not the split you get heat treating, but a full blown crack! Dangit! It will probably work out for the better in the end, because I really wanted to do another R/D bow out of this elm. The last 2 I have made are reflex/deflex and both are just sweet shooting easy to draw no stack power houses. I'm diggin' both. When this cracked I sawed off the belly of the handle, eliminating the crack which allowed me to deflex the thing like I wanted in the first place. I will glue a handle piece on down the road. Worked with the heat gun to get the 2 sides the same and I am close. A few adjustments and I should be good. Should be able to start floor tillering this weekend.
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Nice save SlimBob!
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I got just a bit of work in on it last week. Got the limbs swept forward, but you can see that the right limb has an odd prop twist kinda thing to it. I like symmetry myself, so I am gonna see if I can heat straighten without losing the progress I have made. Diggin' it so far. I'm gonna recurve the tips sharply as I want to stress this Elm a good bit.
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Have fun! Jawge
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Looking forward to this one Bob...Nice start
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I don't have much experience with Elm at all....Observation...it has a mind of it's own. Bending with dry heat is a challenge at best. It doesn't want to bend much and the spring back is killing me. I may have to boil the tips if this continues.
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Looking good so far. :)
Pappy
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Hey Pappy. Good to hear from you. I’ve taken a liking to these R/D bows after making and shooting them a bit. We’ll see how this one turns out. It’s like a stubborn child so far.
Thanks for checking in fellas.