White Oak

[BackyardHunter]

We started a white oak bow yesterday. We had some trouble splitting it the first time. Then we resplit it. It is O.K. now.

[BackyardHunter]

Also we roughed it out.

[George Tsoukalas]

Good for you. White oak is good for bows. Jawge

[Ray Hammond]

can we see sum pitchers??????

[BackyardHunter]

Here is sum pitchers of the bow staves. Today we scraped off the rest of the cambium and layed out the outline of the bow.
 

After removing some wood to let it dry.

 

We did not take any pitchers of the work we did today.... Yet  

[George Tsoukalas]

Nice work. Good progress. Jawge

[BackyardHunter]

Well, we did not do anything new since my last post, but I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!  

[BackyardHunter]

We did some work today. Here are some of the pictures.

We cut out the front profile

 

I also made a rivercane arrow

 

[sabas silva]

Happy Thanksgiving to you to and that bow and arrow is looking good.
 Guess what I did today? 3or 4yrs ago. I purchased a hickory stave and I was so excited waiting on it but when it arrived it just scared me so, that it sat in the garage until last night. Recently purchased a DRYAD BOW BLANK and with the help of the TRADGANG talked myself into starting, and am I having fun. I am no woodworker, I have built shelving and such and they always lean so I am proficient at building
bracing, you get the picture. This morning on the way out I forgot to grab my tr-isquare to cut the knocks in the DRYAD.(darn) But I did have my hickory stave and so I thought what the hech and commenced to peeling bark with my draw knife. Never used one and I had problems getting started but when I did (lookout)I could have shaved that would down to a toothpick and been so happy cause it was fun. My hickory doesn't look near like a bow bbut Im hoping.Thanks for the pics and again great job.

[BackyardHunter]

Well I am happy that you actually started. Did you know that the shaft of the arrow in the pics above is actually five years old? Yeah well, when we lived in Texas five years ago me and my dad went and cut some pieces of river cane. Well we kept one and gave the others to my dad's friend Kenny. Then it sat in the garage until we moved up here and then it sat in the garage again    until a couple of days ago when I wanted my dad to teach how to make an arrow. We started to straighten some of the bamboo that we had. Well, while we were doing that my dad saw the piece of rivercane and said that it was already straightened and everything so we should do that one first. So we put some turkey feathers on it and tested it out. It worked fine for me, but for my dad it kept making a loud whacking sound. I don't think it matters though because I think I am going to keep it on the wall as a memory as the first arrow I ever made.
Well, I guess that's all there is to the story.
Hey, also if there is any way you could post some pics of the work you did then that would be pretty cool.

[Naked in NH]

White oak- very tough wood- especially in tension.  PITA to split, and wildlife much prefer the white oak acorns- I leave them be (much rarer than red oak here).

It takes a LONG time for the weight and moisture to settle.

[BackyardHunter]

This year it did't have any acorns on it. When we were splitting it in half it ran off towards the side. We had to resplit so it's fine now. Also, we have lots of trees including more white oaks so we don't really need to worry.

[Naked in NH]

Oh- that's no criticism for cutting some- I manage my yard for firewood etc, and replant with rarer local woods.  That means killing white pines and burning red oak for firewood (those account for 80% of the trees in the yard).  White oak, ironwood, maples, birch, hickory, walnut- all get spared.

[BackyardHunter]

sorry for not posting in a while... I kind of lost interest while waiting for it to dry. well now we figured out that the stave wasn't what it seemed. It is  really a red oak bow. We did not do any work on it yet but its dry now for sure so we might start it  back up soon...