Out of season

[Ratdog68]

Last June, I was in the area of CleElum and was doing some target shooting with some buddies of mine.  I brought along a T/C Cherokee .45 cal. smoke pole.  Another adventure while there was to stave hunt.  Found a nice Vine Maple for a stave for a bow... while there... saw this ol' girl sneakin' around.  I'd hit it !!!

[boneaddict]

COOL.   How'd that bow turn out?

[Ratdog68]

COOL.   How'd that bow turn out?

Well...  LOL... It got cut to rough shape (kinda snaky), and has been clamped to a form for almost a year now as it dries.  It was (inspite of the snaky shape... which I like) a horizontally oriented stalk... so it has some NICE "natural" reflex  that showed up immediately upon cutting, and scraping to a consistent growth ring.  My buddy is the skilled bowyer, so I'm more or less on "standby" until he's in the mood to make bows so I can get busy.  Me thinks it's gonna make for a nice 45# or so selfbow.  I'm planning on backing it with some rattle snake skins I have for just a project.  I'm glad I'm not in a hurry to build it.  






This is the natural reflex the stave is showing before going into the form for curing.


This is how it's sat for close to a year now.  The easy part is done... now that it's dry... it's gonna be a BEAR to work with... HARD as nails.  But, I'm glad I got it to where I did while it was green/wet.


A guy in the neighborhood cut down a bunch of Black Locust... and I got a couple of decent pieces of that too.  LOL  So many projects... so little time to work on 'em.   

[B.G.hunter]

wow that is cool!!!

[Ratdog68]

wow that is cool!!!

Thanks... now, if I could just find a shot like that during hunting season.  LOL   

[zackmioli]

cool picture and an even cooler project!

[NWTFhunter]

Very nice to see how you do that !