Ozbow

Daryl, I feel your pain. You have the skills and the experience, all we need to get you is some decent osage, and you would have a beauty of a bow.
Hamish.

Sweet!

It would be a good idea to back this one with rawhide due to the thin latewood near the back. Thin rings like to pop even on a bow that lasts through tillering and shoot in.
Hamish.

Hi Nic, I have never seen a piece of hickory, osage, or ipe fret, unless it was due to careless and or hurried tillering, like a severe hinge pulled before correction. Some of the proven timbers when backed with hickory or bamboo can fret, but these are at knots or wavy grain. These could have been ...

That doesn't look like a small crack to me. Looks like it would be more trouble than its worth to try and repair.
Hamish.

Hi Nic, The denser acacias seem make pretty good bows, The problem for most people is that the trees usually grow in remote places, and are usually not found in bow quality sizes at specialty wood stores. I find its better at first to use a proven bow wood to learn proficiency, then experiment with ...

Hi Nicholas, Have you tried a search on Australian woods on this site? If not ,I would recommend you give it a go. This kind of question comes up fairly often. The short story is many Aussie woods will make good bows if designed correctly. However MOE and MOR etc, don't necessarily translate well in...

These things can get pretty tricky, and it depends what state you live in. Many of these items are restricted imports into Australia, but I'm not sure about actual ownership, providing you aren't carrying them in public, without a legitimate reason. Swords are legal to own in most states except VIC ...

Hey, I know a little bit about PNG palm bows. I would keep it as a wall hanger, if it has pulled a splinter on the back. Even though they are long bows they are seldom made to take a full draw of the average westerner. I can remember seeing a tv show with some white guys drawing some palm bows, and ...

lovely!

If you can't process it like I described leave it growing. If you cut it and leave it as a log without quartering it will crack indiscriminately even with the bark on. It needs to be stored out of the weather once cut as its not rot or bug resistant.
Hamish

I have seen it made into bows. At 5ft its getting a bit short for a bow unless you give it wide limbs, it might also need decrowning. You could also splice billets. I haven't made a bow from it yet, but I have worked the wood. Cut it down, split it into halves or quarters depending upon the design o...

Looks good.
I tend to split them thinner whilst they are still wet. It allows them to dry quicker.

Renaissance style longbows (recurved) are interesting bows. Whether they actually looked that way I don't know either. The modern ones that I have seen are all wood laminated, rather than reflexed and recurved self staves. Both methods are much more complicated and time consuming to make than the re...

Hi, When selecting a suitable board from oak, you need to look not only at the growth rings, but also at the rays. The rays (darker short lines in plainsawn timber)show the path of the grain, as you can see in the photo of the limb which has broken diagonally. You want the straightest grain you can ...

Short answer is no. Long answer, I don't think its a hinge. I have watched this guy for years. Him or his production workers don't heat correct the staves and they routinely co. me up some pretty weird looking braced and drawn profiles. They look to me like made to measurement bows, once roughed out...

Hi Grahame, Keep your ears peeled for any "tick" noises. I hope it doesn't happen to you, but the majority of backings from bamboo lamelle that I have used, especially on narrow longbows, start to break down at the severed nodes after several hundred shots. Even then they can take a fair b...

Looks like you are using epoxy for the riser(techniglue?) Did you use it before they lifted or did you use another epoxy, or titebond?
Hamish

Tassie Oak etc. Myself and quite a few other bowyers have tried it. Despite being overbuilt by normal standards, 76-80" long, flat bellied, bending through the handle the wood develops compression fractures, if you look at it harshly. In reality the timber I tried several times from different b...

Very elegant. A nice piece of work. How wide are the limbs?
Hamish

Looks like some kind of Vic ash, or Tassie oak. If it is, then its not good for bows, get a proven species. Sorry to disappoint you, but don't waste your time and a nice board that could be used for another project.
Hamish

Hey Mick, You've got her looking pretty good now. It looks like the right hand limb should be weakened a bit more, so the top limb isn't doing too much work. I usually go by relative set in an unstrung bow. When its even, or the top limb has taken 1/4" or so more set. Please post pic's of the b...

Hi Mick, The tips should be thinned, even down to 3/8" if you feel confident enough. Try this incrementally, eg deepen the nocks evenly, narrow tip width to 5/8", then go to 1/2" etc. making sure the string is still tracking down the centreline. Tiller will change slightly. You still ...

Most of the unbacked flooring that I have tried starts to go at the severed nodes. It can last a while though. When you start to hear "ticks" when drawing it, then its time to stop bending.
Love the drawknife.
Hamish.

Man, I wouldn't feed wild pork stew to dogs, it will turn them WILD!

I haven't used stringy for a bow, but you can leave the sapwood on and use the underbark surface for the back(providing it isn't rotten or damaged). Or you can work it down to the heartwood. Most eucalypts and other Aussie natives don't have true growth rings like trees from the northern hemisphere,...

Yep, That's one good looking bow!

Hey Jeff, Yeah it is pretty subtle, especially when compared to bows that have deflexed pre shaped risers. To me it looks like the type of profile you can get with a Dean Torges adjustable form, where you clamp the centre then you put clamps around the inner limbs either the same height as the centr...

It looks like the unstrung profile the inner limbs haven't taken any undue set(good sign). You can get some unusual looking side views from deflex reflex that look like the outer limbs aren't doing their fair share but they actually are. If it looked like a proper bend for a straight bow, it would p...

Another beauty! It looks like it would be a really nice shooter.
Shame about the billets though, dying to know what happened?