To decrown or not to decrown?

[Cloudfeather]

I don't have any pictures but I'm working on a couple pieces of juniper that were sent to me. Both are about laser straight. One is about 2 inches diameter whole branch and the other is about 4 inches diameter whole branch. Both will be sinew backed, around 58" long. One a 5 curve, the other more a bush bow with some deflex off the handle and reflexed tips. I have a couple basic questions..
 
1 - Is the 4 incher worth splitting to try and get two staves?
2 - Is there any real reason I should decrown them? The smaller has a bit of a high crown but nothing extreme.
3 - Steam or heat gun to induce my deflex and reflex?

Thanks in advance, fellas.

PS - Anxiously waiting for gemsbok horns to come in the mail to start my first horn bow. It's a feeling similar to when I bought my first piece of Osage.

[wizardgoat]

Are the staves green? They will bend like butter if they are a little green with some steam.
I'd still opt for steam even on seasoned juniper.
If I'm sinew backing a juniper or yew bow id de crown and shape the back to how you want. I like it very slightly crowned.
If the stave has no twist I would split it for sure

[Cloudfeather]

Yea, the staves looks very clean, save a few pin knots. So, if I split the bigger one, can I use the flat, "belly" portion as the back instead of decrowning before I sinew.?

[wizardgoat]

I don't see why not. I've seen and shot sinew backed juniper bows of all sapwood and all heartwood, I don't notice a difference. I usually try to get a little of both, just because it looks so good

[mikekeswick]

er sapwood isn't as great in compression as the heartwood. If you can get all heartwood - you should
You want the back to be crowned not flat. sinew barely gets strained on a wood bow so you need to try and get the most out of it by straining it as hard as you can. So make the staves back crowned and also put most of the sinew down the center of the limb with only a thin covering at the limb edges.

[Cloudfeather]

I decrowned the center of the crown and then feathered it out a bit so the crown is much less prominent, but still there. These pieces seem toonly have a tiny bit of heartwood in the center of them. Primarily sapwood pieces.

I'm still going to try and split the bigger stave, but will decrown the same way as I did with this one. Thanks for the info, guys. I've got to get myself some more sinew to process. Got my gemsbok horn today, so I'm probably going to sinew that first because of the 6 month cure time. Then I'll start doing up the juniper staves. After processing some sinew last night, I remembered why I prefer to make self bows. Lol

[Joec123able]

Steam for sure, don't care what anyone says, steam always works better than dry heat.

[Cloudfeather]

Decrowned, did a very slight recurve on the tips and sinew backed. This is a bit of a homage to an Ed Scott bow I've wanted to make ever since I started building bows. 56" ttt, narrow/stiff tips. Very excited to see how this turns out...

[Knotty]

Good luck with your project, I'll be following this thread aswell 😉

[wizardgoat]

That'll be sweet. What kind of juniper?

[Cloudfeather]

I'm not 100% on the species. The guy who sent it to me said it's either Utah, One Seed, or Rocky Mountain.

[penderbender]

That's looking awesome! I've  got a few seaside juniper staves. Never made a sinew backed bow, but really want to.

[Cloudfeather]

That's looking awesome! I've  got a few seaside juniper staves. Never made a sinew backed bow, but really want to.

The worst things about doing a sinew bow is processing the sinew and then waiting for it to cure. Lol

[penderbender]

Yes sounds tedious and hurry up and wait!

[wizardgoat]

Rocky Mountain juniper has purple heartwood like ERC, Utah is more brownish and smells like a spicy armpit. To me anyways haha