Shiloh Rifle Forums

I wish I had started building self bows 40 years ago when I began building rifles. They really fascinate me how design,technique and wood type can preform so differently. Better late than never though and I really like this type of wood work. Odd how composite and compound bows hold little interest for me in their construction.

In the video one of the guys mentioned that we are in the infancy of re-discovery of fire hardened white wood bows. They made one of sweet gum wood , fire hardened it and it preformed sensationally with very high arrow speed.
One would never suspect sweet gum would make a good bow and yet fire transformed it. I'm wondering about alder wood as much of Alaska is covered with it.
Ceder responds very well to the process according to what these guys found.

Here are a few shots of how the fire hardening turned out. The little bow came out very even and I put some reflex in the limbs.
The bigger bow I was able to remove the set but need to make a form to get the limbs even and heat harden it a bit more. It is quite a bit thicker and will need some more fire hardening and straightening.

One more: This is supposed to be about the color they should look when done. Good and toasted without burning black. They repeat the mantra " low and slow" in regards to heat and time to do this.
Final tiller , put on the arrow rest and chord wrap the grip should finish it up. My son's birthday gift!

Here is the finished bow! Looks like the the fire hardening is working so far after shooting 40-50 arrow through it. If anything I should have heat treated it a bit more. It feels real quick and when the finish cures in a couple of days I'll run it through the Chronograph.
The tiller looks pretty good to me.

A few more shots of the front and back with the decoy cord raised grip and moose antler arrow rest. There is two 1/4 inch thick leather risers , front and back on the grip. These flex with the grip area that bends with the limbs when shooting.

Oh, the draw weight is about 43 lbs at 28 inches.

Got going on the second daughters bow again today. Spent all PM heat bending the Bodark straight and rough profiled one side. I did have to compromise the growth ring at the grip but think as this is a rigid handle bow I may be alright . We'll see and if it explodes I'll will learn something cool about this wood.