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Hemlock,LOL. I don't mess with that. If I want to rub my bow down, primitive way, I will use a bear grease or any non stinky bear grease. Bacon may work, but may attrack unwanted guests.
Usually I will seal my stave ends with a thick coat of shellac and then stick them up in the rafters for awhile till it dries out. Or I may stick it in a heat box for a few days, that usually works.
I have however over dried staves, you really don't realize this until you have roughed it out and started to tiller it. Then it breaks. A moisture meter works well.
If I want to air dry a stave fast, I will stick it over a heating or air cond. vent, depending on what time of year it is.
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You don't use Hemlock bark? Iv'e always used animal fat and neats foot oil.
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I use neets foot for tanning. Problem with animal fat is that I put alot into my bows, and when I finish them, I want it to last. So I stay away from greases and natural finishes. I use clear spraypaint, or tung oil, and wax. 100% sealed from moisture.
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Ill heave to try the clear spraypaint, it sounds really effective.
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My last sinew backed osage flatbow, 6 or 7 coats of clear spraypaint, fine steel wool between coats. Three coats of minwax and buffed.
3D shoot, bow strung for close to 8 hours, it poured all day. When I unstrung the bow, it did not have any string follow and pulled the same weight at the end of the day as it did in the beginning.
And the sinew was perfect.
It works.
Jay Massey use to make up an epoxy mix solution that he would put on his sinew backed bows up in Alaska. If he was still alive, I'd put my mix up against his. He ll, if he was still alive, I'd want to sit across the fire and have a cup of coffee with him. Wow.
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I was reading this bow maker article on google, and he said that ironwood, hickory, and walnut where poor woods and the lose thier cast over time and they break. I also happened to come across a 200 something year old Native American Ironwood bow in perfect condition on google. And he stated that bows 40-45 pounds is good for small game. I hunt big game with 45-50 pound bows. I don't know what do you guys think about it.
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I must disagree. Hickory makes a great bow, but you have to seal it. Walnut, sucks. Ironwood also makes a good bow, but again you must seal it. I found ironwood hard to work with and did not like it. Many others have made good bows out of it.
You can read 10 articles and you will get 10 diff. opinions on wood. You need to try all and find out for yourself.
Woods I do not like; black locust, makes a good bow, but I'm allergic to the dust. Maple, I have never made a maple bow that I liked. Ironwood, I just don't like to work it. Walnut, makes a lousy bow unless backed. Cedar, needs to be backed. Oak, easy to get, but again needs to be backed.
Woods I prefer; Osage, elm, hickory. In that order.
I shoot 60 to 65 lb selfbows, why? because I can. A sharp broadhead and a 45lb bow will kill most North American game. Shot placement.
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one thing i recently discovered about red oak:
with many woods, you have to find the right moisture content when you work with it [too damp and it takes more set, too dry and you risk cracking the stave before you get it to full tiller], yet when it was really dry here just one and two months ago, i could stabilize the red oak staves off in the shade out doors and they would dry to the point that when i used the plane, the shavings would just crumble as they came off, and still there was not the hint of cracking, all the way through floor tiller. as supple as when it was damp. i would much prefer to back these bows, but on their own they are doing rather well. medium poundage, but the limbs should have been left wider much further out [and could well be narrower towards the tip].
the way oak behaves, i'd sort of like to trysomething like a holmegaard reproduction in style, with wide flat limbs out transitioning to narrow, thick tips.
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Im going up to my Grandparents house in West Virginia this thanksgiving. In thier backyard, they have thousands of chestnut trees. Im going to try oiling my bows by crushing the nuts and rubbing the oily resin onto it. It may take a few. But I like trying new things.
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One last stupid little question-- Generally, do any saplings anywhere from 2 to 4 inches in diameter contain enough heartwood for a good bow, with heartwood on the belly and sapwood on the back? Thanks---Aaron
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saplings are young trees which do not yet have heartwood [hence the name i would presume]. 4 inch boles of some woods will give you a good heartwood bow, but keep in mind that even sapling bows can be nice.
if you search my uglybow thread, you can see some alder bows i made a while back, which are still holding up and are entirely sapwood, for all practical purposes. i'm going up to oregon in a few days to pick mushrooms, so i'll stop my my cousin's place to see them and try to take some pics.
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