Black Locust - Selfbow?

[Burnsie]

My brother is going to be clearing some trees on a part of his property.
Several of the trees are nice straight Black Locust. Will Black Locust make a good quality selfbow?
If so, how should the logs be processed?  Split into staves, seal ends....etc?
Do you chase a ring like Osage, or is it treated as a white wood bow?
Any info is appreciated. I thought I recall reading somewhere that Black Locust is a cousin of Osage, or maybe I'm thinking of Mulberry?

[Pat B]

As far as seasoning black locust treat it just like osage. Split the log in half and seal the ends. After a few weeks split each half into staves. Like osage once the stave is seasoned, you should remove the bark and sapwood and seal the back while you work the stave. I like shellac for this. It is easily removed with alcohol later.
 Make a black locust bow wider and longer than osage and make the tillering as perfect as possible. Unfortunately BL frets if the tiller is off. Otherwise BL will make a very good bow.

[Burnsie]

Thanks Pat!
Do you chase a ring like Osage, or just get the sapwood removed and that will be your back?

[Pat B]

I always chase a ring on wood bows if possible. Remove the bark, remove the sapwood and chase the first good heartwood ring...and reseal the back.

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I like working black locust. Me for its easier to pop off large chunks from the limbs when roughing out and seems to reapond to wood removal quicker than Osage, essentially takes less exercising between scrapes to make the corrections show. It responds quite well to a solid heat treat. The wood is stiff enough the limbs can get quite thin yet retain good cast. So you can get away with really wide limbs for the weight to reduce fretting but still have good performance. It’s not uncommon for me to end up with limbs 2” wide and 5/16” thick at their thinner spots for a 55# bow and usually get in the 150-160fps area with a 26-27” draw.

Like Pat said, find and chase a good solid ring like you would Osage.

Kyle

[Burnsie]

Thanks - Kyle!

[ozarkcherrybow1]

Black Locust makes a great bow. Don’t forget to share your progress