Darkwind2805 Thank you 🙏

Thanks Shane. Best for the weekend. Mick

Actually Mick! Would you be up for a small challenge? Try and make a longbow from a piece of skirting board that has a draw weight over 60 pounds. Hope you'll try!

Keep filing! All good experience. Watch the next video in this series, out soon. A wonky bow from a nearly useless piece of hawthorn. I'll have a go at anything and try to bend it; if doing the same helps you keep your head, then skirting board will do. Keep at it, you'll succeed! Good luck. Mick

Will do! have a good night.

You too!

Harder to find good skirting board in the woods around here!! 😉

You were Nigel! The fruits of that labour may have helped others make bows and arrows after you! Thanks for watching. Mick

Thank you 🙏

Great news! That's the aim of my channel: to show that with some effort, a bit of luck and some sweat we can all make a reasonable if not perfect bow. Good luck, I hope you meet success first time round. Another viewer just made their first bow and ended up with a 40lb longbow. Great result! Thanks for watching. Mick

Dear Rocketfist, Interesting you should mention maple as a premier bow wood. In looking into the name for Sycamore seeds, I came across the generic name for that species - Acer. Having made maple syrup from sugar maples as one of my pastimes long ago, I knew that Acer is the generic name for all maples. Surprise, surprise: Sycamores are maples. I should have figured that out earlier given the shape of their seeds (called keys) and their leaves. So, if maples are a good wood for bows, perhaps Mick has got himself an additional, good source of bow staves. I can't sign off without also commenting on your mention and comparison of Britain's two premier fighters of WW II. It must be 55 years ago that I read a book on the Hurricane. Two things stand out: one was the that it could withstand the pounding that 50 caliber cannons would do to a plane carrying them and that this fact made the Hurricane an excellent anti-tank weapon. The second was the mention that the Hurricane inflicted the first casualty of WW II in 1936. At an airshow somewhere in Europe in 1936, the Germans were showing off their Bf 109. However, the British had a Hurricane there and demonstrated its ability to do a vertical climb. Some German bigwig then demanded that their Bf 109 pilot do the same. The result was the Bf 109 stalled and crashed - first casualty of the war? or merely the first casualty of an arms' race. In any event, we all owe a sigh of relief that Great Britain had two excellent fighters that excelled at different forms of air combat. Best everyone, especially to our excellent host, that's you Mick. Another thoroughly enjoyable journey through your country.

Glad you enjoyed the video David! Yes the sycamore is a maple, though whether it is a 'good' maple I don't yet know. They are - it appears - loved for their sap. Woodpeckers regularly hammer a circle of peck marks around sycamore saplings for what I can only assume to be a desire for the sap; and badgers claw away at the bigger sycamores too for maybe the same reason. But I loved the way the conversation ended up in the air behind Merlin engines. I think there are just six hurricanes airworthy in the UK - the one I most commonly see is displayed by the BBMF. They exude a kind of workaday toughness in contrast to the Spitfire's refined and deadly elegance. There are a considerable number of Spitfire's airworthy in the UK and several converted to two seaters. I hope to fly in one sometime next year.

Another thing to consider is that not all varieties of maple are equal. Some are very hard while others are a soft wood, and have very different properties.

@@MickGrewcock Did you end up being able to fly in that Spitfire?

@@p7outdoors297 Not yet. Postponed due Covid. Fingers crossed for 2022 🤞

Cheers, best for the weekend. Mick

Hi Mihai! Hope you are well. Yes, there are some overlooked woods in the English hedgerow! Thanks for watching. Part two being filmed now!

Thank you Mr P!

Cheers Dave!

Good morning! Thank you for your comment Ada. Very kind of you. I try hard to match music to theme and mood - don’t always get it right though so glad you enjoyed this one. I learned basic hedge laying in my teens but have done very little of it since. It is a marvellous and undervalued skill. Enjoy your day and thank you for watching my videos 🙏

Tried elder. I broke it, sadly!

Qué pequeño es el mundo! Un saludo desde Austria!

Thank you - really useful info! And thanks for watching. Mick

Michael Borders Good luck, some good staves there - my elm was a bad piece of wood and felled at a less than ideal time. Have a try with yours!!

Bless you for your kind comment. Appreciated as always. I think a pomegranate might be worth shooting 🏹🤗🐶

Mick Grewcock You are welcome. Hmm... now that's an interesting fruit 🤔😀🏹

Neither do I Chris! We’ll soon see. Thanks for watching.

Hazel and blackthorn are my favourites so far. I’m keen to try a proper longbow using blackthorn and have a stave seasoning that should make 3-4 big bows. If they are successful, then blackthorn will head my list.

Good luck with yours Tim. I’m keen to try SB as soon as I have time. Cheers from 🇬🇧

shanebisme 🤣🤣

shanebisme That would be a great project!

We also have Field Maple which is quite common as well as a bunch of other imported types.

Is field maple a good bow wood?

Good as compared to what? :-) Don't see why not, SG is about the same, but Sycamore is found almost everywhere, whereas Field Maple is supposedly more common further south. Best thing for me about Hawthorn is the smell of the May blossom and how hot it burns. For me the best wood is, above all, the one I can get in useful form. That is clean coppice wood of the right size. Most commonly Hazel and Ash around where I live. Some Sycamore. Hawthorn and Blackthorn are more often too hedgy. If I had a really good Blackthorn I probably wouldn't want anything else for a long time. I only make a bow so that I have something to shoot. Not obsessed with making bows.

I haven't found a suitable blackthorn yet, even hawthorn I mentioned is a bit rare around here so I primarily use hazel and I like it. Especially if it comes from a hilly terrain and it grew in such a soil that it makes it strong. Not all hazels are alike as you know.

I really noticed that in Yew. On an estate in the Chilterns where I once had permission to cut some yew, there was a real mix of fertile ground and flinty chalk pockets. Two adjacent trees could be completely different in character. That straight Blackthorn of Mick's is something I still look at from time to time. A piece like that is not something we see very often.

Good luck Preston!

Black Locust is not a native species to the UK. It was introduced here in 1636 though. It doesn't grow in the wild as far as I know but might be seen in a park if your lucky. Never seen one myself. Laburnum and Tulip tree are good bow woods I hear.

Thx for the answer didn't know that. Where I'm from black locus is a common species, and it's not a native wood species it was introduced around 200 years ago from US (probably). Still a great pices of wood. Best regards

It's British maple

Steam or dry heat protecting the wood from scorching by covering wood in vegetable oil. Good luck!

sovernsectwarren In my experience , We dont get than many here, I've never had one on me, only the dog a few times... Mosquitos and even wolf spiders are much more pervasive biters when rumaging around in the undergrowth...lol

I use Epidemic Sound for music and KZfaq licensing. Good luck with your videos!

Thanks Mick That will help me with my video , is it ok if you can you tell me what the names are of the music you used in this video?

Sorry for delay. All from ES: Thieve's Adventures 3, 23 & 44 (three tracks); The Elfin Knight B; and Walking Home at Night. Mick

nst låse In my limited experience, all woods. Mick

@@MickGrewcock thanks:)

Listening to him is great

Sounds like the bow to me, don’t think it’s you!

Thank you!

It may be the way you are bracing the bow. Do you use a stringer? If it's a self bow made from a single kind of good wood you might be able to straighten the arms by heating and torquing the limbs. Will work for hickory, ash, elm, osage the usual suspects. If it's laminated or backed don't try straightening it. Usually bow twist is caused by the piece of wood.

SeadartVSG I do belive I braced the bow wrong the first time and it stuck. I did not use a stringer but I will try to heat it and work with it. Thank you!

Hello Rodolho and thank you. I wish I could assist you with the advice you need but I am not familiar with any of the woods you mention in your comment. I can say that the woods I use are seasoned for various periods of time but all with the aim of reducing the moisture content to about 10% when measured with a digital moisture meter at the surface of wood around 50-100mm thick. This can take as long as a year or more but can be made to happen quickly by first shaping (but not bending the bow) whilst green which will allow the bow wood to dry rapidly. However, this can lead to twisting, warping and cracking in some woods. Maybe one or more of the very knowledgeable and friendly people who read these comments can help you with your question. Can you help Rodolfo guys and gals?

Ipe, definitely. Try a bending test on the lemon & mango. Fruit bearing woods are often very good. Pine you could but it's not a go-to wood unless you have nothing else. Ipe is very hard & dense, over 1.0 specific gravity. It will make a very fine, long, narrow limbed bow. Some folks like to back everything and will use a thin bamboo backing on ipe.

Thank you very much for your kind answer , I am going to apply you advice about seasoning the woods , Best Regards from Costa Rica

Make sample pieces from woods you want to try, unbroken grain on the back. Like miniature bow limbs. Dry them, test them, see how they resist bending, how they break.

That’s the sycamore that appears a little later in the video Rod. I’ll take it down one day soon.

Hi there! Well, to answer that I'd need to know a bit more. Tell me about your bow: the wood, length, thickness and width at the middle.

Alright its White Deal, which i know isnt great but all i had for now, at the handle its 3cm wide (which carries thru the rest of the bow), and 2cm thick, its 1.5cm thick beside the handle which tapers to 1.2 cm thick about 17 inches from the center, which tapers to 0.90 cm at the end, its 67 inches long from tip to tip. Thanks again

Hi there and thank you. My background is in electronics manufacturing - latterly as a business owner. Check out the video descriptions for details of my camera gear but do ask if you have any specific questions or need advice. Happy to share whatI have learned.

@@MickGrewcockmany thanks for your reply, as I mentioned we run a green oak timber framing business I was wondering what is oak like to make bows have you ever tried one? we have lots of Oak off cuts in our yard if your ever in lancashire be sure to call in and take some.

Hi there. Red oak is apparently okay for bows but our commonest oaks in the UK are, as far as I know, less than ideal. I've never tried though but those that have report major problems. I'm sitting by our log burner just now, a lovely glow keeping me warm - oak!

yes once seasoned oak does give some grear heat. well thank you for your creative and informative videos, I'm working my way through your library of work and finding it a joy. good skills!!

Hi there. Material to make a string or finished string?

There are plenty of string makers with websites in the US. Check out Ten Ring Strings for instance.

Someone’s had a drone for quite a few years.

I'm afraid using capitals does not make you right. These trees are acer pseudoplatanus, called sycamore in the UK, a non-native species but very common. Silver maple is acer saccharinum, its leaves are much more pronounced in shape when compared to sycamore.