Great Spring Day

What a great day, glorious sunshine, Brimstone butterflies, Frogs croaking in the pond.
I went up the club to test the Hickory backed bow and the refurbished Yew bow which are V similar draw weight. Mick the blacksmith met me in the car park with a present. I'd been taking about small curved draw knives and spoon carving knives, this had caught his imagination and he'd set about making one for me!
It's a great excuse to use my lathe to turn up some nice handles for it, can't wait to give it a go. He said it's made of EN42 steel. It just the right size for those tricky areas around knots and the dips in back of a bow.
Brilliant, cheers Mick.

The bow testing went well and I threw caution to the wind and took both bows to a full 32" draw, the new bow shot about 10 yards further than the refurbished one, which was to be expected. They both threw a heavyish arrow, 32" 11/32 shaft 150gn point (562 grain total weight) over 200 yards.
I tried my flight arrow from the Hickory backed bow and was surprised to find it only went the same distance?? To my chagrin JT reminded me that I'd paced back an extra 25 yards from the shooting line before I tried it! So it actually gave about 240 yards. The flight arrow weighs 382 grains (for comparison my 'standard' arrow weighs 408gn)
I was slightly disappointed at the flight arrow distance and had to remind myself that the bow which threw that arrow over 300 yards was almost twice the draw weight (100#).
I had been considering taking it to an ILAA shoot next weekend to try it flight shooting, but I think I'll leave it until I have a bow with a bit more weight. I'd managed to shoot round some of the 3D targets with it and feel it's a manageable weight. A sensible top weight for me is probably about 85-90# , mind I'm keen not to go daft and injure myself by trying 100# again. There's a shoot at Avalon (Sandy in Bedfordshire) next week which is a superb venue,so I'll take 'Twister' my primitive Yew bow to that instead.
Update:- I found a nice offcut of Laburnum and turned up some handles, they are rudimentary at the moment, once I get to use it I'll adjust them to a more ergonomic grip, then after a few generations of bowyers have used it they'll get a nice patina.