A buddy of mine texted me a couple of days ago inquiring as to whether or not locust would be any good for a selfbow. Apparently he cut several which he said were very straight. If so, any recommendations on care/preparation of the "staves"? Any pics of bows you may have made? Any thoughts suggestions appreciated, good or bad ;)
Locust does make a good bow. It was one of the preferred bow woods of the Eastern Woodland societies.
Even though locust is one of the strongest North American hardwood in compression it has a tendency to fret(compression fractures) if your tillering of off. Locust does lend itself to belly tempering and this helps prevent fretting.
Make the bow long, 66" or more and no less than 1 1/2" wide at the fades. For a 1 1/2" wide bow go out at least to mid limb before tapering to the tips.
Make the belly flat and consider a reverse trapezoidal design (belly wider than the back). Overbuild bow in length to avoid undue stress in compression.
Tim Baker covers this in TBB series.
Kris
I have locust growing around me never tried it. Doing the steps you guys said does it just reduce the fretting or can it be prevented all together? I have cut locust before and it tended to check badly. Would you recommend leaving the bark on also? Also how would you rate it against other second string woods hickory,elm,ash, etc?
I treat locust like a whitewood when building bows with it. Locust is susceptible to fretting if you don't do your part. Tempering the belly helps with this and trapping, like Kris suggested, also helps.
Treat the wood like osage after cutting. If you remove the bark remove the sapwood too and seal the back(and ends)well. I like shellac but wood glue works fine too. If you leave the bark on treat it for bugs.
Thanks for the info Pat, one more question. I have both black and honey locust on my property. I seen in your other post where you said treat black locust like osage. By this do you mean working it to one growth ring?
Yes, remove the bark and sapwood and seal the ends and the back. You do need to work the back to one heartwood growth ring with the locust. For the honey locust remove the bark to expose the back(wait until the leaves are out on the honey locust to ensure the bark will remove easily).
Thanks for the info guys. One more(newbie)question, after sealing, how long should it cure. Seems I read something to the effect of a year per inch (I may be off on my time)of thickness on osage. Would it be similar on the locust?
a year per inch- in the round- it will dry quicker once split.
store in a neutral environment until it reaches ambient MC, then you can speed up the drying.
many others on here withn other experience- they will clock in too
That's sound info, fujimo. Once it has reached equilibrium with the local R/H you can reduce the staves to floor tiller stage and it will dry quicker. The honey locust will dry faster than the locust because the locust is oilier so it dries slower. You may want to bind any you take down to floor tiller to a 2x4 so it doesn't twist or warp as it dries.
Thanks again, sounds like it's time to get to work :)
Timely post Randy (FerretWYO) just dropped off a log at my place that was sitting at his fathers up in Sheridan for several years now. His dad thought it was osage. As soon as we split it in two we knew it wasn't osage. Our best guess black locust. So cant wait to test my tillering skills against the locust. BB 4 says it is a classroom on tillering and correct bow design.
I am thinking a meare heath, and a woodland D bow design.