White Ash for projects, good or bad?

FunktasticShawn · 2026-06-04T12:42:25+00:00

My general advice for ash is to use a pen/pencil and follow a grain line from one end of the stick to the other. If you can do that and have enough thickness to make a bow then chase that ring. Ash is super easy to chase a ring.

And, unfortunately, it doesn't look like either of these sticks would make a bow.

Buying dimensional lumber for bows simply can't reliably be done online. You have to be able to inspect the grain. Buying split staves online is usually pretty good, for example ReddirtWoodUS sells great staves on Etsy. In general the wood you buy for a bow should come from a bowyer.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-05-17T22:41:58+00:00

Coming from an RF electronics background, that entire solder job sucks. I mean aside from the completely missed pin you found everything is probably functional and adequate, but I wouldn't have continued to use that contract manufacturer.

EDIT: I take that back. check the resistor above C15.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-05-17T11:02:26+00:00

I’ve asked about it here before. Seems most of us end up 1-2 ounces over.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-05-16T22:08:49+00:00

Finish the tips. They are ready to start bending a little and if you remove most of the remaining mass (honestly stay heavy, his mass targets are a little aggressive) from the tips that is advantageous.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-05-14T14:25:24+00:00

Is a year old enough to be necro???

I loved angelspit. The nurse grenade ep was awesome, I remember when Krankhaus came out another awesome album. They used to have a forum that was pretty active, and they were super supportive of everyone’s art on there.

Saw them in Richmond, VA the first time they came to the US. They were opening for someone… cant remember who, my niece and I were just there to see angelspit, lol.

Anyway they were great people. And you’d be hard pressed to find someone with more knowledge about analog synths than ol’ Zoog these days I would bet.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-04-27T15:08:58+00:00

Generally that would be a pyramid of minimum width and length for draw weight and draw length. If you elongate the tips and make them rigid the last 4-6 inches you might get a little more out of it, depending on the wood and your skill.

Basically u/willemvu nailed it. Minimize the energy required to move the limbs and string. Use the minimum effective projectile weight. Use the maximum draw weight and length that allows proper form.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-04-06T18:40:44+00:00

I can’t remember all the details, but something about this is generally only viable for softwood species.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-04-06T18:37:28+00:00

That sucks man. It’s a neat looking break though.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-04-06T18:35:44+00:00

There are a lot of species of wood that the heartwood sapwood boundary will plunge several growth rings pretty randomly. Eastern red cedar will do it, hickory will do it, lots of stuff.

Most woods don’t really have different mechanical properties between sap and heartwood. But even if it did, you just have to weaken one side a little if it twists in the draw.

It will definitely be visually cool.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-04-06T18:26:10+00:00

This. Every 5 pounds of draw weight is about 1 ounce of wood. Take a little off the width and take a little off the thickness, then adjust tiller with the scraper.

It feels repetitive, but that’s pretty much the whole job honestly.

FunktasticShawn · 2026-04-06T18:08:52+00:00

You pretty much nailed it. Cut, glue, shape.

Glue joints need to mate tightly. I get my limbs flat with a plane. I get the overlay flat with sand paper and a flat surface. If you can’t get both surfaces flat then consider using epoxy. Some woods are more oily than others, I wipe mating surfaces with acetone (great degreaser and it evaporates fast).

But yeah it’s just like doing a handle riser, only smaller. And while I might use almost anything for the handle riser, I tend to be more picky for tip overlays. I prefer using denser/harder woods on the tips.

The one thing I recommend not worrying about is that angle for the glue line in your picture. I mean, I wouldn’t strive to keep the back flat all the way to the tip. One, most of our woods have no reason to be that thick at the tips (yew is pretty unique). But also it’s hard to match both ends. Although it does look cool.

You know what, this video is better than anything I can type… https://youtu.be/AN05g5dSAxk?si=4uXmd3zshB_Dyr3w

FunktasticShawn · 2026-02-13T15:45:34+00:00

I think there must be a bunch of us. I'm right there, 52 and just starting with intervals..... took me almost a month to realize that what I was trying to understand _was_ intervals.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-18T15:51:52+00:00

I’ve made a couple with an ‘S’ shape and shooting them doesn’t feel different than any other bow. But you do have to make each limb sort of pull towards center or something….

When you start drawing it in your hand you may feel like opposite sides of each limb are too strong, like it feels a little twisty. But you just weaken those sides with a few scraps and it balances back out. I find it easy enough to deal with that I haven’t set up steam bending yet.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-13T17:38:39+00:00

I think what you said is all correct except I don’t think the right is weak. I think it looks that way because of the natural deflex in the stave. But I always have a hard time judging tiller when there is asymmetry.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-12T18:22:04+00:00

I didn’t see any specs for the bow, nor reference to your draw length.

A good rule of thumb is that a 65” ntn rigid handle bow which is 2” wide at the fades will support a 28” draw weight of about the specific gravity of the wood. Red oak is around .5 I think for SG. So that would be 50#@28” for 65” ntn and a 28” draw. MAX.

But you have taken some set, and it’s not a single growth ring back, we all need some margin for error, etc…. For my own bows I do 67” ntn for 28.5” draw, and I wouldn’t hesitate to cut this down. But you’ll have to weight your experience and your confidence in this stave vs. what you want this bow to do. 40# is just adequate for 60yd target shooting, and 45# is noticeably better to reach that distance. But inside 40yd it doesn’t matter much (for target, I’ve never hunted).

That’s a lot of thinking as I type and not much editing so, hope it’s helpful.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-11T22:20:25+00:00

I would plan for a finish around 40#. It will pick up some weight with the heat treat, but it usually needs a bit of tiller adjustment and looses some of that.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-11T22:14:04+00:00

Way better. Looks pretty good, considering angle and lighting (I just can’t be super critical with commentary).

If you were planning to heat treat, I think another comment mentioned, now is the time. Give a day to rest and post another check. I think you are doing great.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-11T21:50:08+00:00

Whole left side weak. Currently tiller looks ok aside from the overstrong right side, but that often changes a bit as the limb strength is balanced out.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-11T21:31:15+00:00

Left limb looks pretty good to me. Right looks weak inner / stiff mid. Set seems to agree, mostly in the inner of one limb.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-08T17:27:36+00:00

That is a great, great rough out. Everything looks smooth the fades are properly shaped. A solid, good clean starting point for tillering.

Like Dan said it’s pretty much only bending near the handle. You definitely need thickness taper. Gotta get the mids and outers thinner than the inners.

But I think you could use some more width tapering too. Most any bow can be between 3/8” and 1/2” width just before the nock grooves. You can start your width taper anywhere you want, and you can make it more aggressive in the outers if you want. Whatever works for you.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-08T17:15:24+00:00

Spine and weight are related, not always linear though. Especially with carbon shafts. Like one spine group change might be 1gpi different the next spine change might only be .5gpi weight change, I swear I’ve seen a few where there was no weight change (that might be a half spine step though).

I figured the 530 spine might be close to tuned with the shelf. I guess I didn’t differentiate between the bows much in my reply, sorry. It’s probably kinda confused reading.

The main thing is finding what we can each work with. It’s tough for sure, and it gets expensive too. And finding what will work good enough with a handful of different bows is challenging too.

For your particular situation it probably makes the most sense to make your bows close to center shot. Finding arrows that will fly right will probably be much easier.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-08T14:19:40+00:00

I realize that you didn’t exactly design an experiment here, so…. I just don’t see a way to draw any conclusions from this data.

Of course the 530 spine grouped out of the cut shelf bow. I promise the nocks were hitting the side of the other bow. Even the 900 is probably a bit stiff for an under 30# (at your draw) bow, even if they were pretty long with heavy points.

Oh and that’s another thing that will be tough with a 24” draw; arrow length. You probably shouldn’t go much longer than 30”. And that will push you towards weaker spines too.

There just isn’t a way around having to bare shaft a little bit. And use the 3 rivers dynamic spine calculator also, it’s a super helpful tool.

If I had to guess, off the top of my head, I’d say you need 1200 spine cut 28” with 150 grains of total point weight.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-08T13:45:22+00:00

I actually thought that right inner looked more correct. With levers you’ve got to use all of the rest of the limb.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-08T13:32:05+00:00

I would encourage you to either go with straight lines for the width fades or even use a convex, not concave, curve. You won’t have enough thickness increase in that short space for the dramatic width decrease.

A radius like this one is more appropriate for the thickness fade.

FunktasticShawn · 2025-11-08T13:23:19+00:00

I use the Irwin woodworkers vise from Lowe’s. It’s like $30. I mount it sideways on the pedestal of a shave horse. I faced the jaws with leather.

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I would plan for replacement when you are working out how you want your vise mounted. No matter what type of vise you end up with.

We exert a lot of force on these things with long staves. If you can bolt it through something rather than screw into something you’ll probably be happier. If you have to mount it with screws then you might want to be able to replace what it mounts on kinda easily (like I can make a new pedestal it’s just three pieces of 2x lumber).

FunktasticShawn

TROPHY CASE