Medieval Reenactors?

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Sat Apr 23, 2005 10:45 pm

Does anyone here have ties to or contact with either the SCA or RenFaire world, or similar groups?

I've come into possession of a number of lovely and very well seasoned Osage Orange longbow blanks and would like to find some way of getting in contact with bow makers or others who might want them.

Sadly, everywhere I look, nobody seems to be interested in traditional wood bows - just the fiberglass compounds.

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Sun Apr 24, 2005 8:08 am

Our neighbor lady just married the guy who owns Martin Archery here in town. He's been around a long time and is famous for his traditional wooden bows. A friend of mine had one made from Zebra wood a few years ago which was pretty cool looking. I don't know the owner myself, but you might try contacting him thought his web site at http://www.martinarchery.com/ or calling the company at (509)529-2554

Jane · Post by **Jane** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 9:47 pm

The big SCA stuff is just starting up according to their website and there will be a lot going on over the next couple of months so as to catch the best weather. I'll ask some of our locals. Meanwhile, post if they find a good home OK?

Jayhawk · Post by **Jayhawk** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 5:26 am

I've always wondered how osage orange would work for a flute...it being such a durable, water resistant material. You might want to try posting to the flute board and see if anyone there wants any of your stock.

Eric

DanD · Post by **DanD** » Sun May 01, 2005 7:52 am

Chuck - check out http://www.mystiklongbows.com/index.html They are in Cuba, IL - somewhat NW of you.
An article in the Peoria Journal Star made it sound like a labor of love, with an emphasis on teaching, rather than a simply commercial venture, but I don't have any personal experience with them.

DanD

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Mon May 02, 2005 9:05 pm

Jayhawk wrote:I've always wondered how osage orange would work for a flute...it being such a durable, water resistant material. You might want to try posting to the flute board and see if anyone there wants any of your stock.

Eric

These are solid, straight-grain billets either 3 or up to 6 feet long. I'm not sure what would be involved in turning one into a flute, but I suspect you'd have to start with a pretty sophisticated lathe and/or drill press. Also, I wonder if there wouldn't be a lot of waste, since with an average retangular cross section of about 3 inches you'd probably only get one instrument per length. They taper at both ends for the longer ones or one end per piece for the matched sets.

Looks like new, uncured staves go for $30-$45 on eBay, but I don't really want to mess with selling then individually, though I would if someone wanted to try one or two for instrument making.

I just found a TRAD archery classified ad site - need to look into that one further.

Jerry Freeman · Post by **Jerry Freeman** » Mon May 02, 2005 9:53 pm

A 1" X 1" X 12" or so blank will get you a soprano D whistle. I think you can get a flute out of 1 1/2" so you might be able to get four flutes out of 3" X 3" X 26" or so. Is there a big difference in density, water resistance, etc. between the heartwood and sapwood?

I've often thought Osage might make good whistles. Paul?

Best wishes,
Jerry

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Tue May 03, 2005 7:58 pm

Jerry

From the curvature of the edges and the available grain, I'm guessing that this wood is from the outer rings of a relatively large mature tree - the kind you don't find very often anymore now that the farmers are ripping out and burning all the fencerows. Hard to say from these pieces, of course, but I'd have to guess that the original tree probably had a diameter of two feet or more. There is no bark and the wood is quite dense-grained.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:07 pm

That is some of the strongest, heaviest and hardest to cut/drill/saw/break wood available.... another interesting trait is that if you plant it, itjust might grow you a new tree, LOL!

Beautiful too!

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Wed May 04, 2005 5:54 am

Jerry Freeman wrote:A 1" X 1" X 12" or so blank will get you a soprano D whistle. I think you can get a flute out of 1 1/2" so you might be able to get four flutes out of 3" X 3" X 26" or so. Is there a big difference in density, water resistance, etc. between the heartwood and sapwood?

I've often thought Osage might make good whistles. Paul?

Best wishes,
Jerry

You thought right! I've made at least one of these, maybe two and the results were quite good. The wood is pretty stringy which may be why it gives a good bow flex. The resulting whistle did not have a mirror smooth finish, but it looked really nice. The wood ended up looking more yellow than orange, although I don't know if that would have changed with time.

Chuck_Clark · Post by **Chuck_Clark** » Wed May 04, 2005 11:17 pm

brewerpaul wrote: The wood ended up looking more yellow than orange, although I don't know if that would have changed with time.

I've split quite a lot of it for firewood over the years. It is often almost lemon-yellow, especially when first split.