indian archery flatbow repaired and refinished

[don s]

i decided to repair and refinish my indian archery flatbow. click on the pic and go to my photo bucket. i have 3 albums with before and after pics, as well as pics with the handle off. you can see that the bow is actually two pieces joined by a "z" splice. the handle is stamped "55" as well as penciled with the number. the handle also is dowel pinned together.if you can't access all 3 albums let me know and i'll fix it.looks like maple, would you agree?
   

[don s]

this will take you to before pics. this will take you to pics with the handle off.

[Liquid Amber]

Looks good.

Better photos of the wood and I'm now pretty sure it's lemonwood.  They'd saw out billets from a lemonwood log imported from Cuba and then shaped the bow.  Sometimes they backed it, most times they didn't.  I have owned several Pearson and Indian bows, both of hickory and lemonwood.  I still have an old Highfield ELB of lemonwood.

I'm not sure maple was used in the manufacture of these bows.  It was a favored wood for early wood/fiberglass composite bows and still used for that purpose.

[don s]

thanks LA. i've never seen lemon wood before. i've heard of it. i know it's from cuba and AKA degame. the grain appears similar to maple.
                                        don

[KYArcher]

Looks good! Nice Job.... KY

[don s]

thank you. i'm going slow with this bow. i made up a string for it and i strung it with a shallow brace. i'm going to short draw it to excercise the limbs and let it come to the string.
       don

[dposalski]

Don, that looks great.  I will do that to my bow as well.  Trying to figure out what to do about the logo.

[don s]

dposalski, i can't help you there. my logo is not a decal. it was coming off, so it was easy to remove and clean up. when i finished with the bow it was simply a matter of regluing it to it's original spot.

[dposalski]

I dropped a line to the BP factory and they weren't of any help.  I know I have seen decals for the Bear bows floating around on here.