How about lemonwood backed with bamboo or hickory?

[2fletch]

i made a variety of self bows from woods like hickory, locust, osage, hop hornbeam, dogwood, and yew, several tears ago. Then I started backing some woods with hickory or bamboo, which improved their durability. One of the bows that I wanted to build was lemonwood backed with hickory or bamboo. Does anyone know of such a bow? It seems like a great combination. 

[Pat B]

Don, I've built 2 hickory backed lemonwood, American longbow style and they both turned out great. Lemonwood is susceptible to fretting so IMO boo might be a bit too much for it.

[Lehtis]

I have made some lemonwood bellied and bamboo backed English longbow stylish bows, all with some hardwood core slice. Two for myself and two-three for my archery friends. My own are ca. 80 lbs @ 28", the others 40-50 lbs @ 28". Lemonwood is very nice to work with and behaves otherwise well but takes a lot string follow under bamboo. This makes them sluggish compared to osage orange bellied bows. And, remember, the growth rings of lemonwood should not follow the back! They should be vertical, i.e. 90 degrees to back.

[2fletch]

Wow1 Pat, i can't believe that a fellow North Carolinian has made that combination of woods bow. How recent was it and do you still have them? I'd love to see one.

The photos from Finland are great. Do you think that the core is necessary? It does add to the beauty of the bow.
 

[Pat B]

Don, like most of the bows I make I gave both away. Both of these were raffled of at 2 separate Tenn. Classics one with with 6 old green Bear wood arrows and a hip quiver. The other went to a guy in Texas. I'll see if I can find pics for you. I think I got one piece of lemonwood and a hickory backing from a guy in Wilkesboro, NC.

[Lehtis]

”The photos from Finland are great. Do you think that the core is necessary? It does add to the beauty of the bow.”

Thanks for your photo comments.

So far I know the hardwood core is not necessary. I’ve added it as eye candy. In that bow the core is bulletwood a.k.a. massaranduba.

[Pat B]

Don, here are the pics of the hickory backed lemonwood bow, arrow set and quiver I made for the Tenn Classic raffle table. The arrows were donated by Pearldrums...

[2fletch]

My first experiennce with a bow was with a hickory longbow made by a bowyer in kentucky, and then a lemonwood longbow. The hickory bow developed extreme string follow and the draw weight dropped during a long summer day. The lemonwood bow had great cast all day, but broke on a cold day. Then I ordered a bow from Malibu Archery in California. It was an all bamboo bow, and well engineered with parallel and edge grain bamboo in the right places. That bow lasted until I was 18 yrs. old and went to the service. It was a light weight semi recurve with great cast. At the end of a long hot humid day it still had plenty of zest.

Guess what? Someone contacted me recently who had  one of these Malibu bamboo bows. It's on it's way, and could be here today.  Wow! It's been more then 60 years since I last had one.

[2fletch]

Didn't mean to change the subject, but the idea of getting a bow similar to one that I had as a kid, was just to much. It did come in today, and was in great shape for a 60+ year old bow. It still had the Malibu Archery Cougar sticker in fair condition. It had the same reflexed tips with laminated all bamboo limbs. It had two pieces of wood in the riser, where mine was all bamboo. Also, it must be close to 80# draw weight, whereas mine was 40#. Never the less, I'm very happy to have it. I have looked for a Malibu Archery bow for years.

Now, back on the topic. I wonder how many bowyers have tried the lemonwood / bamboo backed combination, and what were their results?