Hot Off The Press - New Smokewood Bow

[Erwincm]

Just finished this 62" 40#@28" TD recurve. The bow is constructed from locally harvested smokewood. The limbs are the natural color of the wood while the riser is dyed olive green with a gold filled eagle inset into the sight window. Limb cores are bamboo. The string is custom with olive loops and serving and dark brown Dacron core. Not visible are contoured polymer limb pads that make this an extremely quiet bow. Wanted to share some pics with the group...

[D]

Holy Cow that eagle is cool.  Nice looking bow.

[Horn Chaser]

Cool looking bow.

[bow loving man]

WOW! that is a beautiful bow. You did very well...

[Crooked Stic]

Never heard of smokewood. Sure looks nice though. Is the green a stain or impregnated into the riser wood?

[chackworth3]

Good lookin bow!

[jess stuart]

Great looking bow, somoke wood is some good looking stuff.

[Echatham]

very cool. really like the inlay.

[NYArrow]

Amazing looking bow. How did you inlay the eagle?

[Trapper Rob]

Beautiful bow the eagle inlay looks really nice.

[JJB]

Man that is an amazing bow! Very very well done!
         
-Jay

[polarbearforge]

I'm not normally one for takedowns, but that one would start changing my mind.  Very nice.

Jamie

[carpin'mark]

I never heard of Smokewood either, but it sure is pretty, great contrast with the olive. Beautiful job on the eagle inlay, I drink far too much coffee to ever attempt something like that, it would look more like a crazy chicken.

[wood carver 2]

I have seen a lot of beautiful and artistic bows here, but this one really speaks to me.                          
You wouldn't by chance build bows for sale or trade would you?
Dave.

[bigbob2]

Super job, very classy

[critman]

Very VERY cool bow. Super job dude. Love the inlay.  

[jsweka]

That's a really unique look.  I like it    

[BCWV]

Very nice    

[soy]

That is cool ...do you have pics of the limbs to see the grain of the raw wood  

[Erwincm]

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. I really enjoyed working with this very special wood. Please humor me for a minute while I explain:

A piece of smokewood large enough to build a riser from is a rare find indeed! Somekewood is more commonly known as Chittimwood or ****timwood and it's range is very limited in the US >  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cotinus_obovatus_range_map_5.png.  The tree grows extremely slowly and yields very tight growth rings of relatively high density wood. It has a beautiful yellow-orange color and moderate figure. The tree this bow was built from was about 100 years old and was harvested about 30 years ago by a friend. Even at nearly 100 years age, the trunk was only approximately 5 inches in diameter which made it very difficult to mill a large enough piece from which one could build a riser.
Aside from it's scarcity in the US, many believe this wood is related to the ****tah wood mentioned in the Old Testament (Exodus) from which the Ark of the Covenant and the Jewish Tabernacle were constructed. God instructed the Isrealites to cover the Ark and the Tabernacle with hammered gold. Finally, olives were a staple in the diets of the Isrealites before and after exhile from Egypt and Babylon. All this to say this was my inspiration for the color scheme and gold inlay design highlights of the bow.

To answer some questions:
1)   I formulated the olive color from TransFast wood Dyes and applied several coats so the color is more "in the wood" than "on the wood". Notice the orange-yellow grain lines coming through the olive at growth ring surface intersections.
2)  The eagle image was deep laser-etched into the wood then gold filled.
3) I've considered selling my bows but I always get attached to them after investing so much time and effort in their design and construction. Each one has it's own story. My wife doesn't share my passion so I might be forced to sell some before I can build more :-( In all seriousness, I might entertain the thought of building a few custom bows if people were interested.

Here's a couple pics of the limb and tip as requested: