Friday 22 October 2010

Good News Bad News

The Yew stave I roughed on Thursday has developed a few cracks, annoyingly near that nice ripple. That side of the stave will need removing. I've got plenty of length to play with so I should be able to position the bow within the stave to avoid any problem areas. It's had about 8 months seasoning and is still shifting, I've de-barked it now and as it's been thinned a bit it should settle down soon. That's the nature of this game do a bit, leave it a month, do a bit...

The Ash Meare Heathe bow is now heat treated and has had since last Friday to re-acclimatise so I shall string it and see how it goes, lets just hope it doesn't snap like a dry stick (after all, that' s what it is!) I'll post some pics over the weekend.
Ah well I've just strung it, the tiller still needed some adjustment on the lower limb, so I took yet more wood off, but the draw weight is now above 40 pounds! The bow has very little set in it and it shoots fast, I can scarecely believe it, I'm now rather embarrassed by my scepticism.
It may still settle down so I musn't get carried away, the bottom line is I've removed wood and gained draw weight, so it's pretty much got to be faster. I shall have to try it on the next Hazel bow I build, I can see I'm going to be running around heat treating everything I see...Ooooh coffee table let's blast that with the heat gun.

I shall take the finished longbow to the club and shoot it in some more, hopefully the guy I've made it for will be there.

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