Sunday 15 January 2017

A Visitor and Some Staves

I had a visit from Brian who is fairly local to me, it was a bit of a shock as he's 6'4" with a 30" (approx) draw. The Laburnum I'd hoped to use for a longbow for him doesn't have enough length so I took down the spliced billets from my shelf which I'd done last February (so the glue should be dry by now ;-) )
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/billets-and-splices.html
We had a good chat and a try out with a couple of bows measuring his draw length as about 29.5" I sorted out 3 of the spliced staves which might suit a 50# @ 30" bow, I'll work each one down a bit to see how they feel.
The first has a good deal of natural reflex and has been roughed down with bandsaw and drawknife, it's begining to flex already. It's quite a good stave but there are a few tricky areas, but it is promising.
It's good to get back to feeling wood under the drawknife again. I've got it 74" long at the moment and with 30" draw and that reflex, the wood will be working fairly hard, although 50# isn't too much strain.
He's currently shooting a worn out old club bow that's only about 30# but he seemed comfortable pulling Twister (only to 28" on strict orders and with my arrows) He felt 45# would probably do, but I said if we aim for 50# maximum, I can always loose 5 or 10# but it's much harder to put it back on if he'd wished for more.
I'm sure I can find a bit more cast that the soft old club bow.
Now I've got the bit between the teeth I'll press on!

I reviewed some of my other staves too, but the best of the ones which will suit primitives aren't seasoned yet, but could maybe be roughed down a bit to hasten the seasoning.

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