Black walnut bows?

[Chris Shelton]

#4458

anyone out there ever heard of anyone making a self bow out of black walnut?

[johnny2]

#40180

I don’t know of anyone, but that would be a gorgeous bow. I hope someone has some info.

[Chris Shelton]

#40470

yea it would be awesome looking just like the black walnut laminations in my recurve are, but the wood is somewhat briddle, so that is why i was asking, i am still going to try anyway!?

[TimZeigler]

#38077

Black walnut makes excellent core lams for your limbs, and I’ve used it on a take down recurve riser that I built for my son. Worked just fine. I did utilize a couple micarta accent stripes to strengthen the riser (just in case) and you could do the same with any material not just micarta/phenolic.

[kstout]

#40758

I talked to an older gentleman at the Michigan Traditional bowhunter shoot at Pine River Michigan last summer who was shooting a Black Walnut selfbow that was 42#@ 28″. He said he had made quite a few out of black walnut. He also had several out of hop hornbeam. I bought a black walnut stave from him for $20.00 but have’nt made a bow from it yet. I was also at Gary Davis’s, with a group of people, several years ago, and there was a gut there, working on a black walnut stave.

[Chris Shelton]

#46417

alright, wasnt sure because Ive never heard of a selfbow made of black walnut, I dont know about the longterm strength though, the wood is kinda britle, Have two big chunks of it and a couple of staves, Im definatly going to make a riser out of the chunks, My riser for my take down is black walnut and maple! So are my limbs!

[db22]

#59169

Greatreearcher wrote: anyone out there ever heard of anyone making a self bow out of black walnut?

Here is a comment I found in researching bow materials. The author is Tim Baker:

<< WALNUT, black: .55. Semi-ring-porous, easy to work, elastic for its mass, similar in performance to cherry, but more tension-safe. Will try to chrysal where cherry wont. A wonderful, overlooked bowwood. Bows can be all sapwood or all heartwood, or mixed, sapwood taking a bit more set in compression. The off-white sapwood can be worked down to 25% or so of limb thickness, creating appealing contrast with the almost black belly. Very high heartwood extractive level, so as with similar woods, it may be more resistant to water absorption. It s reported not to warp with rising and falling humidity, possibly for this reason.
WALNUT, European: .56. Design as per Black. Not as pretty, but makes a nice bow. Strong enough in tension to tolerate being a backward bow: the crowned sapling surface as belly, the split back surface tillered. >>

Black walnut is my favorite wood, but so far I have only worked with red oak. I do have a 6′ maple stave that I have been thinking of laminating with an overlay of black walnut.

[Chris Shelton]

#59288

thanks that is some great info!

[dodgetrapper]

#59382

Ive seen two real pretty bows of black walnut one 60# @ 24 and had 2 1/4 in wide limbs, blew the target away when you tryed to shoot at it. The other was a shorter kids bow.

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