Selfbow Woods etc

[ChakaZulu]

Ok, having asked about pine, I was about to ask about a couple of other woods but it seems to me that a generic thread may help.

What are some decent woods for making selfbows (in my case, AFB-type)? I've been looking at a few sites and need opinions.

Whilst I'm on the subject, is it always necessary to get a stave that has some heartwood and some sapwood?


Could I have opinions on the following, and any others you know:

Oak
Ash
White beech
Tulipwood
Iroko
Utile
Sapele
Meranti
Cherrywood
Idigbo
American black walnut


This is basically the list the my local timber merchant has online - please add more and we can make this a definitive thread

[dave_t_aber]

I would say yes to ash, cherry and walnut, as long as you can select a good stave, and work down to a single growth ring.

The others, Im not sure about, Oak, I know they make bows from red oak in the US, so I dont know if your timber yard variety is similar. I would expect it would handle the compression fine, but not sure about tension.

Iroko, and tulipwood are likely to be expensive arent they?

Ash is a definate anyway, its straight, and easy to work. It would be a good choice for a AFB.

[stephenp]

Hi Dan,
I don't want to put you of having a go at making a AFB but about 20 years ago I made a left hand stock for a hw35 air rifle which I still have, with access to a full joiners shop of machinery it took about three weeks of lunch hours to make, I started by cutting out the blank with a bandsaw then routered out the inner workings to fit to the metalwork,that was the easy bit after that it was all spoke shave and sand paper.
sorry this is a bit of topic but I can't believe that Samick, Internature and Tamar can make AFB's for the price .
"had a couple of hours shooting after lunch and had the woods to my self"nice way to start the year of..
Regards Stephen

[ChakaZulu]

Not put off at all. There's no rush - I have years if I need that long. To be honest, this is as much about having a project as it is about getting a decent bow.

I suspect that the cheap AFBs are machine made.

[Et tu brute]

Not sure about AFB's but for longbows maple and sycamore would also be suitable. Just has to be a good quality stave.

[dave_t_aber]

Yeah, surely the cheaper AFB's are made in eastern countries, with cheaper labour, with jigs, machines, batch production, etc etc. They arent the same handmade articles, not that makes them worse, just for a different type of person.

Im pretty sure, but dont quote me on this, that any wood that is suitable for a longbow is suitable for a flatbow, as all things being equal flatbows put less strain on the wood in comparison to a longbow, as seen in the use of softer woods like elm for AFB's.

Its good that your not put off by work, take it easy and the bow will come good, rushing ruinings bows, I have done it once, and ruined a good stave.

dave

[Et tu brute]

Hickory is pretty good, but apparently quite hard to work, but still, definitely worth using. Lemonwood (or degame, same thing I think) can also be used, and is very easy to work, or ideally lemonwood with a backing of hickory.

[ChakaZulu]

All this talk of backing. Is there any more to it than gluing a thin piece of one wood onto the back of a bigger bit of the softer wood and then shaping a bow as if it was one piece of wood?

[dave_t_aber]

Hickory is pretty good, it is actually easy to work, it is generally knot free, and not too hard.

Take a look at the pics of the hickory flat bow i made, backed with bamboo

dave_t_aber - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The second bow, the one with the light tan leather handle is the one, its a 35lb draw at 26 inches. Has a fair set, but thats really because the bow is 6 inches too short, so its quite stressed. works well though.

yeah, backing is easy, best to get backing strips from archery shop, rather than buying bamboo in bulk, like me, and having the stuff everywhere!

Bamboo is a very safe backing, more so than hickory, but both are good in terms of performance.
dave

[ChakaZulu]

Originally Posted by Yorker

Backing is actually quite a complex thing.

Wood is strongest is compression, thus the back of the bow (ie. leading edge) is the bit that is going to fail first. What backing does is basically substitude the leading edge (a latewood ring) with a substance that has a particularly high tensile strength. The advantage of this is there is less chance of your bow breaking, it will last longer, it can lead to more power etc.

I used jute for the backing on my bow, a line of thick jute string which I then tied down with thread or more jute. When my bow failed, it still shot despite the failure - because the jute was holding it together and handling tensile forces.

I can't remember the best woods for backing, however other top backings include Linen, Snakeskin -illegal now though, cotton? and sinew. Sinew was the favourite.

Linen is great because it will only stretch 3% before it snaps, huge tensile tolerance before failure. You take a layer of tightly woven linen and glue it onto your bow back and thats you happy. Indians did it this way too. Sinew is strong and springy, was a favourite of the mongolians because it added power and durability. Supposedly you can turn a pretty naff bow into a useable one with sinew backing.

I realise that backing has conmplex reasons and physics; I meant in practical terms once you have your material do you just glue it on and then treat it as a single piece of wood (obviously with an eye to keeping the backing intact etc.

I think I'm probably going to go for lemonwood and hickory or osage and bamboo, based largely on the postage from Ireland of the osage/bamboo and the suitability of the lemonwood/hickory, which is from a longbow shop so may be the wrong shape.