Ever since Steve Moore did that awesome build along, I have wanted to try this. Well, I finally got around to it and finished it this morning.
It's not a very heavy bow. It's about 40 lbs. But I didn't want it to break, and cedar is kind of brittle. I just wanted the bow so I can take it to the Ren Faire with me.
That is a beautiful ELB excellent job Man! I love the all wood longbows. I all but had my hands on a eastern juniper stave, but before I could get to it the state cut it off their right-of-way and it was gone. That would have been a beauty! The heartwood is purple. Your longbow is a dandy! Hows it shoot for you? What arrows are you using? Thanks! G.fellow
Jim: It's encouraging to know that people are making bows out of juniper for realsies. I did it because it's just so pretty, and because it's light. I heard it could make a fast bow. My previous two ELB style bows were really slow. I have a whole bunch of this ERC. I bought a log, and I could probably get another six bows out of it, depending on how the knots work out.
Jeff: This one turned out to be 73" nock to nock. The log I bought was 12 feet long. It cut it down to 8', and now I have a bunch of 4' billets. If I get desperate, I suppose I could splice those. But I may find another use for them.
Ray: That is such a sad story. I had a similar story involving an Osage tree, so I feel your pain. The heartwood of this stave was purple, too. Or at least it was purple when I first split it. It was really striking. The colour faded some, but then it popped back out when I put a finish on it. I suppose the fading had to do with losing moisture. It was still a little wet when I bought it. It shoots okay; definitely faster than my previous two ELB's, but still slower than my bamboo/ipe and fiberglass bows. This may be a sin, but I've been shooting aluminum arrows out of it. I'm going to post a video in a little bit.
I don't know what happened with that bow. Steve seems to have disappeared. It was an awesome build along, though.
Here's another thread I found where a guy made an ERC ELB, and there are pictures of the finished product. Very nice-looking.
Thank you all for the compliments. Of course I can't take credit for how pretty cedar is, but I did liberate it from a log. :-) I actually removed two more rings than I meant to because I kept messing up. The rings are kind of hard to see. It worked out, though. I wanted to have a nice ratio between the sap wood and the heart wood so it would resemble a Yew ELB, except for the heart wood colour, of course.
These are the original horn nocks I was going to use, but I messed them up. I had glued them onto scrap wood to shape them before putting them on the bow. I tried to remove them by cutting them off at the base and re-drilling the holes with the same spade bit, and I ended up drilling them crooked. It's a shame. I thought these were really pretty because they had those white streaks mixed in with the black. I suppose I could fill the holes with epoxy and try again, but I don't know how I'd get them straight.
Great looking bow! I never had much luck chasing cedar rings. Too thin and convoluted for my tired eyes. Hope she holds up well for you.
Here is the link to another build along posted here about two years back: http://leatherwall.bowsite.com/TF/lw/thread2.cfm?threadid=217913&category=88#2893932 It details a totally different but effective method of working ERC.
Thanks for the link, Hank. I may use a hickory backing on some of my knottier pieces. Chasing the rings was a bit of a challenge. I violated them twice before I finally got a good ring. I was getting a little nervous toward the end, but I was really careful with that last ring. It's not as easy as Osage where you have a spongy layer, and you can just kind of scrape it off, leaving you with a perfect backing.
Sam, have you ever tried edge grain red elm to back cedar? I haven't, I was just wondering. I happened on about 150 board feet of red elm and bought it for about $.75 a bd ft the other day. It makes great lams but I've been wanting to make a board or tri lam bow for personal use.