Hi Arbalist Guild members! It's been a while. I have been moving a bit and now am in Redding California. I have a great shop, stocked it with the tools I will need and yesterday, finally, I got my wood.

I have some cocobolo, indian rosewood and some maple burl as well as some ebony for little parts. I am drawing and getting ready to make some initial length cuts.

My last bow was tons of fun to shoot but the shuttle table was only made to accept two fletch. I have since modified it to take three fletch and can now just buy 21" bolts off the shelf and go shooting. It's much more accurate since I have reworked the string catch and completely remade the bow from osage and hickory. I am getting groups of about 8" 100 feet but I am going to order a chrony soon so I can start actually testing the muzzle velocity of my bows.

Anyway, just thought I would drop in since I am back in the swing of bowmaking and get reacquainted with y'all. Here's a shot of the bocote slide action bow with my new woods. I have decided to make my new bows slide cocking as well but with an upside down roller nut trigger. I have my metals and a friend with a plasma cutter ready to go. Getting really excited.

A view of the rail profile.

Hey welcome back And glad to hear things are getting settled. (I hope)
Grr work won't let me view your pictures so I can't comment on them yet. But having a friend with a plasma cutter is always handy.

very nice, looks like you have another thin lamination in that prod. Yes? Maybe you can tell/show us how you mounted the prod. And a very clever way to utilize 3 fletch bolts!

Todd

Thanks for checking it out guys! I mounted the prod originally with a really annoying tie of hemp twine but I changed it to incorporate a plug with 2 1/4" threaded shafts terminating in either end with nuts. On the inside the nut is inset and tightly glued to a piece of hickory and the "bushing" is an old Levi's jeans patch. The bow has a red oak cap "washer" and an osage bolt cover. I will take some shots of how it goes together.

My next bows will be a split limb design and have a standard cockfletch rail. I like this bow but I need to find a way to serve the string that won't wear so fast over the shapely rail.

Also, wood question: do you think maple burl will be strong enough for the limb riser?

Any wood would be strong enough IF you use enough wood. Maple is fairly strong and as you probably know so are hickory and osage. Really a lot depends on how it is designed.

Todd

Thanks, I figured as much. I guess what I am wondering more specifically, is: is burl more or less stress resistant in small pieces like that? I mean, I could design the riser in straight grain maple and know what I was getting by the grain. With burl it's harder for me to figure the tensile strength of the grain in the riser design.

I guess experiment is the solution. Hopefully I get it right before I waste too much material.

Hey Jake is back.

I've read that Burl is strong and solid, but it's not as durable as nice close grained wood...in other words it has no flexibility and chips/cracks, but again that depends on the design and the load you put on it. Try to avoid sharp corners and edges as much as possible as those tend to develop cracks(inside corners) and chip(sharp edges)

Good luck,

Ivo

Hey Ivo! Yeah, that's what I guessed looking at the grain. Maybe I will find a way to back the pieces or make them more or less decorative over steel or something.

I haven't made any all wood risers, but I've seen some. Some all wood ones and some with metal plates on top and bottom and large brass inserts for the limb bolts.

However, I think you can still calculate your way around this and do a really nice all wood riser. There is a chapter in one of Bowyers bibles that talks about measuring the strength of wood...they made some test pieces in form of square pegs, put them in a square hole and used a wooden lever (also with a square hole) and a spring scale on the end to measure how much force it takes to break the peg...from that point it's all hazy...I'll look for the books tonight and will scan the pages in the morning.

Ivo

Cool, thanks a lot man!

Todd the archer wrote:very nice, looks like you have another thin lamination in that prod. Yes?

Oops, missed that one. You are right, there is a layer of fiberglass in there.

'Wood Handbook' has the most complete reference on properties of wood I know of. It might have the information you want about maple burls.
For the rest of us the properties of woods we might consider for stocks, nuts or prods might save us time money or our health.
It is published by USDA Forest Products Laboratory. About $35 if you have to have your own.

I am super pissed right about now. I just got the first stock roughed out (cocobolo) and found a huge, nasty knot right in the weakest spot between body and butt. I am binning it and starting again on the second half of the cocobolo.