Lacewood Bow

This is my second reflex/deflex bow.

I custom made it for my first “customer” -my dad. He chose the wood and wants to do the fine finish work himself so this is rough sanded and unfinished and now in a box for the mail!

The body is lacewood with bamboo backing. The handle is a custom milled piece from Kenny’s Custom Archery “www.kennyscustomarchery.com” in Kansas made of fitted pieces of lacewood and osage orange. To fill in the kerf of his milling process are thin laminates of padauk (I think) and maple.

I had a tough time laminating his pieces for the bow limbs, so in the end I had to get a lacewood plank and make the core from a single piece. This time I left the bamboo face intact so as not to compromise its integrity, and it will finish nicely with just a little sanding. The tips are water buffalo horn again.

The best part of this bow is the handle piece and how the design looked once I shaped it. The X-shape made by the shaping of the grip is very cool.

The lacewood is the best part and the worst part of this bow. It is beautiful but has poor compression strength. There are already stress lines appearing in the core of the bow, so this will be mainly decorative rather than functional. In the future I will use lacewood for handles and tips, but it is not suited for high-stress parts.

-- Cheyenne