Friday 31 December 2010

Looking for Timber

I went for a walk in the woods looking out for suitable wood.
Hornbeam is on my list of woods to try, I found a piece which wasn't growing very well and was in danger of coming down, it was a bit spindly and damaged at ground level, covered in small masses of tiny shoots. I cut it close to the ground so that it can regrow.
I'm pretty hopefull it's Hornbeam but I can go and look at the rest of the tree when it's in leaf later in the year. I've run it through the bandsaw and it might make a couple of interesting flat primitive bows with bags of character, it will be a bit of a challenge, but it will be nice to try a different wood.
I figured that by cutting today Dec 31st 2010, come this time tomorrow it will have had a years seasoning already!

I s'pose I should sumarise the highs and lows of 2010.
Getting the bandsaw was a good move, that log I got today probably wouldn't have split with axe and wedges.
A low was when the Ash flat bow suddenly changed it's tiller, but learning about heat treating to re-work the bow became a high.
The Hawthorn bow (which is in the corner of shame) was a big dissapointment, but I may be able to re-work it for someone who has just started shooting.
I think my favourite bow was possibly the last one I made (see October's entries)... but maybe we all think our last was our best?
The other contender was the primitive Yew bow (see June).

The effort I've put into this blog and my website has been well worth it, as over the year I've made contact with loads of interesting people and met a few of them too, which has been great.

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