Morphy wrote on Nov 26
th, 2020 at 3:54pm:
You will know it's not good wood when it explodes at full draw. Dead giveaway.
I think this shows how bad the wood that I picked out is...
I went today and grabbed some suitable size pieces of wood. No idea what types, I feel I can get pickier when I actually know what I'm doing. I got one dead piece and one that was technically green but the short tree had fallen recently and was crushed under a larger tree. I didn't feel guilty taking that one.
I started on the dead wood piece and I was wondering the whole time I was working it "Is this one too far gone?". Got enough material off it to gently pull on it over my knee, just to see what sort of flex it had. The answer was no flex at all. Snapped clean in two with almost no force put on it. Well at least there wasn't a sharp arrow anywhere near it when it did that.
Round two: Green wood piece. Much more promising and it was really starting to look bow shaped. I managed to flex it ever so slightly and it was nice and springy though had a long way to go.Then my knife cut a little too deep in one section and created a hinge. I managed to get the hinge worked out though and it was looking pretty good. It was really looking like I was going to have a usable b- SNAP. Right where the hinge had been. It was around the same area as a knot so I think it was just too thin there for it to handle with the wood also not being ideal.
Even though I "failed" It was really pretty fun and I learnt a lot. What exactly have I learned? Take more time with it, get better wood.