Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: PaSteve on July 18, 2019, 06:56:18 am
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I'm planning on building a black locust bow for my girlfriend. I made her a lightweight osage bow that she's growing out of quite quickly. I think it's time to build her a little heavier bow. I would like the bow to be about 28 - 30#@24" and 58 - 60" stiff handle.
I've done a search and it appears some say remove sapwood while others prefer to leave the sapwood on. The sapwood is clean with no violations so I would prefer to leave it but if an all heartwood bow would be better I can remove sapwood. Maybe you can see by the picture but the sapwood is about 1/4" thick. My concern is since I'm making a relatively lightweight bow would that mean my limbs would basically be almost all sapwood. Is that ok or would I do better to chase a heartwood ring? I would like to leave the sapwood for appearance and I wouldn't have to do anything to the back. I'm figuring to start with 1 1/2" wide at fades til midlimb then tapering to 7/16" nocks. I can reduce width a little during tillering if my limbs are getting too thin.
Thanks for any help & suggestions. Steve
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I wouldn't hesitate to leave some sapwood on this or any bow. The color contrast would be nice too. :OK
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For that light a bow I wouldn't worry about leaving sapwood on as long as it's a good clean layer with no big knots or violations of grain (as you mentioned that it is fine). If it was a much heavier draw weight, like a Cherokee warbow (which is basically just a heavier built and longer version) or a much heavier, say 70#+ flatbow, I would chase a heartwood ring instead personally If it's a self bow, to be a little on the safer side.
If you really wanted to keep the heartwood contrast look with your bow design, you could work the sapwood down a little to thin it and keep more of the heartwood on, but that's probably more work than you would need to do.
Also you could try to make more of a longbow style instead of a flatbow style (for a narrower and deeper cross section), but again, your preference. I'm sure the design you have in mind will make a fine bow even if it's mostly sapwood.
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Locust sapwood isn't some wimpy, mushy stuff. You could build a good, hunting weight bow with only sapwood if it were thick enough. I've built probably 5 or 6 locust bows with sapwood backs and never had a failure.
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Hey Steve how deep is that stave? Looks like you could make one of each if you split the stave correctly. Just a thought.
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seconded what bassman said. one stave mostly sapwood, and one stave heartwood, and design them about the same and see what happens and if there's any difference!
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Thanks for the advice guys. The picture is of the wider/deeper part of the stave. With very careful splitting I could possibly get 2 bows but I'd hate to have it split bad and not get anything out of it. The other end of the stave tapers to 1" wide and 1" deep.
Since the sapwood limbs shouldn't be a problem, I'll just layout the bow as is. Hopefully, it'll go as planned. Looking forward to it. Never worked with black locust before.
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It appears you have enough heartwood for a bow. No need to leave the sapwood on. Take it off. IMHO. Jawge
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its up to you..if you like the contrast go for it.. that light should be no issues... BL sapwood is tough...gut
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The sapwood in the locust that I’ve worked seems to be quite different than the heartwood.
I’ve only made 4 or 5 BL bows, and the best were all heartwood. Just my 2 cents
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If you don't mind chasing a ring, you could just leave a couple of sapwood rings on. That would allow more heartwood, but still have the color contrast.