I am seriously considering getting a yew board and making an american longbow simular to early Hill bows or kinda like David Miller's Sage model. Now for a backing which would be better, Bamboo or Hickory.
As far as bamboo I am concerend about mating the flat to round surface and laying out the bow with the nodes.
Hickory is it slower than Bamboo?
Now realize this will be my first bow. Thats why I am opting for a backing as I figure it will be easier since I will not have to deal with keeping the sap wood right.
Also I want the bow to be a true D cross section. I figure on following the deminsions described by Howard Hill in Hunting the hardway.
Thanks.
BTW if I do this I will be pestering the Heck out of yall.
No worries on the pestering. Everybody on here have always been very helpful. There is a lot of knowledge on here. I agree with vanillabear. Bamboo has a tendency to lift splinters. But man does it look great when it goes right. I prefere bamboo on mine but hickory, like vanillabear said is more foolproof. I use a belt sander to flatten the back of the bamboo.
I would choose hickory over boo any day because I prefer durability over sexy. Hickory backed yew American long bow is more of a classic design anyway.
I've never used yew but have a HBY made by fujimo...
Seems to be a real shooter and if the hickory slowed it down,,, I can't tell that it did.
Make it easy on yourself and use hickory for now. Less work invloved for one thing. Once you are more confident in your bowmaking skills, you can try bamboo. 1/8" of hickory isn't gonna slow anything down. Should be a lively shooter!
Id make it even more simple and make just a one piece bow(selfbow) and only use a "soft" backing like silk,rawhide,etc....and learn how to tiller first,because more than likely your first time tillering is going to go awry. So why put a bunch of more work into a hard backed laminate only to fail....keep it simple first and learn the basics. And tillering the bow is your number one concern..not what type of material or materials you use. Trust me.
The white Hickory is going to look like more like a solid piece of Yew with a touch of sapwood. Hickory will not slow anything down.
I've used both. I'd say go with hickory since you're just starting out. It will be easier to work with. The boo does seem to add a little more zip to the bow than hickory, but that's just me.