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Main Boards => The Bowyer's Bench => Topic started by: wood carver 2 on January 03, 2016, 06:21:00 PM
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Well, I went and said it on another thread, so today I started working on a bow I have been putting off for a long time.
I dug out my stave of black palm and I set myself a goal of making it a bow by turkey season.
I thought I might do a build along, if I can remember to take pictures along the way.
Please feel free to chime in with any advice you might have as I'm in new territory here.
Here is the stave. It's roughly 6 foot 7 inches long by 2 inches wide by 1 inch thick.
(http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x349/1wood1/IMG_0649_zpsbjoh8y7l.jpg) (http://s1177.photobucket.com/user/1wood1/media/IMG_0649_zpsbjoh8y7l.jpg.html)
It was covered on the bark side (do palms have bark?) with a hard, flaky crust that I rasped off. Using my sharpest rasp, it felt like I was going over iron. The rasp would sometimes skate over it. Here is what it looked like.
(http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x349/1wood1/IMG_0650_zps11l8a0hv.jpg) (http://s1177.photobucket.com/user/1wood1/media/IMG_0650_zps11l8a0hv.jpg.html)
After I removed it, it looked like this.
(http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x349/1wood1/IMG_0651_zpsqjujvt2j.jpg) (http://s1177.photobucket.com/user/1wood1/media/IMG_0651_zpsqjujvt2j.jpg.html)
If you look close, you can see that it has nodes very similar to bamboo. On this stave, they are every 12 to 15 inches apart and you can't see them on the belly side. Here is the belly side. It is fibrous with a lot of loose fibers. I'll have to work it down to solid wood.
(http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x349/1wood1/IMG_0653_zpsuiomiqrp.jpg) (http://s1177.photobucket.com/user/1wood1/media/IMG_0653_zpsuiomiqrp.jpg.html)
At this point I snapped a chalkline down the center. This is as far as I got. I sent a message to the American Museum of Natural History asking if they could help with any information on these bows. I could not find any useful info on them at all. If I could get some layout dimensions, I'll be on my way.
Dave.
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I'm afraid with black palm you want the center of the 'tree'. The 'wood' there is black,very dense and hard. As you move away from the center you get more of the weak white fiberous stuff. For black palm you need the stave to be almost black. I've made a few from it in the past and as you get closer to the surface of the tree the strength goes down considerably.
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It is quite dark under the whitish layer, I haven't sanded it much, but as I sand, it gets darker. The belly side is black. There is a lot of dirt in it. The whole thing is heavy and rings when you hit it, like super dense wood.
I'll clean it up some more. Not today though. It's too cold out there.
Dave.
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I have a sawn plank of the same wood. It's black and about the same weight and hardness.
Dave.
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I don't know anything about black palm, but I'm sure interested in seeing what it looks like when you have it roughed out.
Good luck with it!
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So, after a winter of heavy overtime on my new job, I got started again on the stave and on the sawn plank. I cut the stave down to 72 inches and layed out the handle area. Then I tapered the limbs to about 3/4 inch for now. I have to thin it from back to belly now to get it bending. I was thinking of bandsawing a taper on the belly side of each limb from the fades to the tips.
I also worked on the palm plank I have. I ran it through the drum sander and planed a straight edge on it before cutting it to 1 1/2 inches wide. It's 3/8 thick. I was thinking of backing it with bamboo and making a board bow with it.
I'll post some pictures later. I would be happy to hear your opinions and advice for both of these builds.
Dave.