Pear bow

[Shaun]

Last August I cut a wild seeded pear and split out some staves. I also took one stave and roughed out a bow blank.

 

I let this blank slow dry for a few months and then hung it at the ceiling above my wood stove to finish. This week I made a bow from it.

 

Its 63" NTN 52# @ 27" with Kingwood tip overlays and a JD style wrap handel.

 

 

I stained the bright white of the wood with a red/brown water based stain and put a couple coats of shellac to seal it. The back is the cambium layer with mottled camo appearance. The wood is very fine grained and unbelievably light. Shoots with plenty of zip.

Here's about 26" of draw - its hard to do full draw with the camera timer but you can see the tiller.

 

Its now drying with the first of several coats of Tru-oil.

[Hojo]

Sweet bow, Shaun. Nicely done.  Looking at the top pic that you've posted, this is just the first of many!

[Dean Marlow]

Very nice Shaun. Didn't know fruit wood would make bows. The staves look like hickory. Dean

[CheapShot]

Very nice, tiller looks great. How wide is it?

[ChristopherO]

That is a bow to be proud of.  I've a wild grown pear in the side yard that needs consideration, too.
Dean, having been raise on an orchard there are certain woods that can work well and other fruit trees that are just too brittle.  Peach would not be a good choice but many apple varieties should make a fine bow.  Man of the many ten's of thousands of limbs I've cut over the years that would have made great arrow launchers.

[4runr]

Very nice Shaun.

Any chance some of those staves will make it to Comptons?

[Pat B]

Nice bow Shaun and from an unusual bow wood. Good job. Is that pear a fruiting or ornamental pear?

[sulphur]

nice bow.  how does that wood shoot compared to other whitewoods???

[Shaun]

Pat, fruiting frost pear wild seeded, I think it might be called Keifer variety. Large tree with pears that are hard till after the first frost.

sulfer, not much experienced with other white woods, but it is quick and very light.

Pear is very fine grained and stable. It would not form with dry heat, I tired on the cull before tillering. It has been used for fine measuring tools like architect's rulers for a long time. Very nice to work.

[Leland]

WOW! That's nice,it's got a simple-old school look.Love the handle.

  Leland

[Pat B]

Shaun, Try a test piece and see how it reacts to heat tempering on the belly. Tempering seems to improve cast in most whitewoods and it may help it hold reflex better.

[Shaun]

Pat, in spite of not being able to induce backset before tillering, the bow holds at about 1/2" string follow which is right where I like them for shooting. Don't think the trade off for another few feet per second would be worth it.

[ozarkcherrybow1]

Very cool, Shaun! I love seeing bows from "other" white woods. I would like to see a front profile and please give the dimensions. It looks like a narrow elb type to me?
 Terry

[talkingcabbage]

Very nice Shaun.  What's the dimensions?

BTW I've got to say thanks again for helping cut osage last weekend.  I'm gonna start roughing out a stave this weekend, I think (unless the wife has other plans!)

[Shaun]

Bow limbs are fairly standard flat bow  = 1 3/8" wide from fades to about mid limb and then tapering to 5/8" tips (soft light wood requires wider tips than osage). It tapers evenly in thickness from about 5/8" at fades to 3/8" at tips.

Joe, I had a good time and that was one nice straight tree we found. Forgot to advise you to spray some bug stuff on the bark for the staves you were going to hang in the rafters as well as the end sealing we talked about.

[Pat B]

Shaun, I think we can say that pear can hold its own as a selfbow wood. That's good enough for me!
 Got any seeds you can send me?  d;^)