Aussie bow woods

[yeoman]

Here is a list of some Aussie timbers, with locations, mechanical properties and scientific names. I've also put some other more established bow woods in the list for comparison. If you don't understand MoE and MoR, don't worry. All that matters is, the higher the better for each. 'ADD' just means density.

I culled the list to woods which have higher mechanical properties than Yew.

Only testing will reveal if these woods are valuable for bows or not, though.

Dave

[GrahameA]

Dave

Absolutely brilliant!!!!!

Thank you very much.

[archangel]

Dave

Brilliant work!! I notice that karri and marri (Western Australian) are 'up there' in both scales. I can get plenty of both as they both have a nice grain. The problem with Marri (red gum) is that it tends to have resin lines through the grain. Previously I saw this could make marri an attractive riser wood and am about to forward some to Norman for testing. However, if I can get some long lengths that are (a) free of blemish and (b) a close straight grain pattern, could marri be suitable for limbs??[/i]

[stace]

Dave
Yeah GrahameA said it "BRILLIANT "mate
I will have a great read of these, a big THANKYOU

Are you in ok with putting this in the RESOURCES section ????
It is a great reference piece and I feel it should be there

Cheers
Stace

[Lou]

Good work Dave,

Yep, lotsa testing work is needed to give more definitive answers for each species, how good potential energy storage materials they are. Apart from MoE this also depends on the allowable strain for given moisture content. This is the strain just before string follow starts to creep in. I haven’t found any literature so far that gives this bit of data.

The ideal combination is that of high MoE and allowable strain combined with low specific density. However the mom nature is a moody creature and tends to associate high MoE and high MoR with high specific density in woods. Think Spotted Gum and Sydney Blue Gum for example, I wish they were only half the specific density they are so not so much of the energy is wasted on limb self acceleration. I am still to make a bow from them though.

Lou

[yeoman]

Sure, put it in the resources section. Let it be known though that the data came from K.Bootle, Wood in Australia.

Archangel, if you can find a clean enough peice, I'm sure you could whittle a bent stick out of it.

It's interesting how the density geos up with MoR/MoR. I've got a graph of density vs.MoE and the same vs. MoR, and it's hardly linear. More of a giant cloud. The very interesting thing is that there are limts above and below which woods WILL NOT go for a given density.

Dave

[archangel]

Dave

Finally got out in the garden this morning, only to end up breaking the handle of my trusty spade digging out some bushes. I went down to our local hardware to pick up a new handle and surprised to find they are made from hickory ... hmm, length and diameter look okay? Is this type of hickory (pignut) the same as the one mentioned in your summary? If so, @ $18.70 and some careful cutting, I may be able to get two solid staves that I can back with bamboo.

[Lou]

David,

I made a longbow about 5 years ago from a hickory shovel handle that I split in half and spliced the halves. There was only so much wood in it that the bow turned out only #42. If I made it from two handles I could have made at least #60 bow.

The bow was very nice looking and nice shooting, though on a light side for my liking. Hickory proved to be an excellent bow wood.

Lou

[wheres the myrtle]

Good list....

Though,

I have ironbark from eastern vic(which i presume is red)

I've had silvertop ash and spotty worked em both and there is no way on gods green earth that either can hold a candle to the ironbark in compression or tension.

[Mububban]

I culled the list to woods which have higher mechanical properties than Yew.

Only testing will reveal if these woods are valuable for bows or not, though.

Hi everyone, how many of the big list have people managed to make bows out of? Any pleasant or unpleasant surprises? If yew is supposedly the holy grail of bowmaking woods, but there are local timbers that can equal or outperform it, that's got to be good for us!

[Hamish]

Good stats are only indicators. As yeoman says you still have to try the woods out.
Yew and osage's stats don't show up well against our Aussie Hardwoods. However you can make high weight bows of any designs from Yew or osage despite what the stats say. If a competant craftsman can make an unbacked, narrow, durable, elb, with a heavily cambered belly, then the wood from whatever country can deserve to be called equal to yew or osage.
There are plenty of Aussie woods that will make excellent bows, usually if they have wider, shallower limbs than an elb.
Whatever the properties are for making bows, I don't think any of these stats necessarily cover them.You do have to start somewhere, so chasing stats is as valid as any other method. As stated in an earlier post check out the stats for cooktown ironwood. It is one of the densest woods known to man, has high ratings, in every area. On paper the stuff should make terriffic narrow longbows of the most stressed design. In practice it doesn't work well even for narrow flatbows. I haven't tried one with very wide limbs yet, it should work though. An even better option would be to use some of these woods as belly timber with a wood or boo backing. The margin on many woods is so small that a tiny error judgement can spell the difference with a hinge , chrysals or fracture. I don't find the same problems in yew or osage where you would have to make a massive mistake to develop one of the aforementioned threats to a stave.

I will still continue to experiment with our native species and you can be sure I will let you all know if I discover an equal yew or osage. Brigalow, and gidgee have been mentioned, though I haven't yet experimented with them. Plenty of guys have made beautiful heavyweight elbs from red ash. Lance wood has been really good so far in my personal experiments. Celery top pine is good but minor problems result in chrysals.
Many other woods would be good but the stave would need to be reflexed to counter excessive set, others would need to be backed to be safe in tension, but would make very powerful bows.
Always happy to hear other peoples findings.

Hamish.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Dave,

Apropos of Lou's comment above in regard to the relationship between MoE and ADD, is it feasible that a simple bit of arithmetic involving dividing the MoE number by the ADD number could reveal a relationship that might help in selecting a candidate timber?

I realise that there are all sorts of other variables which come into how the bow turns out, but we are using these mechanical properties as a guide only anyway.

Your figures for Yew don't come out all that well using my suggestion above anyway, but a pattern seems to emerge when it is used on some of the other outland species when using MoE/ADD quotient when compared with some of the performance reports of those woods from the US and elsewhere I thought.

Nothing is lost if I am wrong. We will still have to do the empirical work, but it may help reduce the amount of less productive work.

Dennis La Varenne

[jape]

I saw Timmah's thread about the Grayson collection:

http://www.ozbow.net/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=4802

On the page below is a bow from Fiji made of mangrove. Looks like a traditional longbow shape and takes fine, detailed carving so is dense.

http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/grayso ... ery2.shtml

Anyone ever tried it locally? If it is suitable it would be an abundant and easily sourced wood for Australian bow makers.

[archangel]

Dennis wrote:

is it feasible that a simple bit of arithmetic involving dividing the MoE number by the ADD number could reveal a relationship that might help in selecting a candidate timber?

Being a maths teacher, this exercise appeared to be a reasonably good hypothesis. Using Yeoman's table, I compared the ratio for spotted gum Eucalyptus maculata with WA karri Eucalyptus diversicolor to see how it would rate as a good bow timber. The respective results were 0.0242 for spotted gum and 0.0177 for karri. I decided to extend the range, American Ipe came out @ 0.0219 and osage 0.0136.

If Dennis' proposed theory works, karri should be capable of performing with similar characteristics to osage orage. All well and good, but the test will be in the actual performance. Our woodwork teacher is bringing some seasoned karri boards in this week to try out as both laminated and selfbows. I'll post some results on this thread when they are available.

[perry]

Good work yeoman, interesting charts I have saved them for closer study , I have seen a booklet to Australian timbers with this sort of information before , Cliff Turpin has it I think its a government publication updated regular for the timber industry . It still boils down to gettin those wood chips pilling up and a understanding of what bow designs suit what woods gained though trial and error and personal experience being shared through all means possible . By the way Yew and osage are only regarded as superior bow woods because they are in common use particully in the US , with information on Australian bow woods being slowly accepted one day they will be regarded as superior as they will be in common use perhaps even in the US . regards Perry .

[Dennis La Varenne]

Archangel,

Thanks for the feedback. It was good to get another opinion.

Maths has never been my strongpoint, but that kind of relationship seemed to jump out of Lou's observations about MoE and ADD. A bigger quotient would seem to indicate a wood which was stronger for its mass - I thought.

I don't know if a similarly applied arithmetic technique between MoR and ADD would indicate anything significant because I still have some difficulty understanding the nature of MoR which I once thought I understood fairly well.

Dennis La Varenne

[Hamish]

Not to anyone in particular, ...I would love someone to prove me wrong. Its not that I have to be right, but so far this stuff is just a hypothesis. Believe me I would love to be wrong, and that you could just pop into a woodlot and blindly pick up a bunch of Australian timber from a species that is superior to yew or osage. Find these species, that can survive the stresses of an elb and supply them commercially at a reasonable price( or even at a premium)with grain straight enough to make an unbacked bow, and I will be a regular customer. I can stomach the pain and humiliation as you laugh at me all the way to the bank.
There are plenty of Aussie woods that will make excellent bows, usually of a wider/flatter design. Eg spotted gum, ironbark. These timbers are plentiful, accessible. Just in the same way in the US people use oak, ash, hickory, walnut etc to make excellent bows.These type of woods on the average won't make as good a bow with a narrow elb design like yew or osage. You can tweak the odds in your favour by heat treating, reflexing the stave of another species to within an inch of its life and get good results with an english design. The amount of extra work you do doesn't compare with picking up a known species straight stave and just making a bow.


JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN MAKE A BOW OUT OF A TYPE OF WOOD, IT DOESN"T MEAN THAT THE WOOD IS SUPERIOR FOR BOWS THAN A PROVEN SPECIES LIKE YEW OR OSAGE. Theoretically you could make a bow out of balsa, sure it would have to be 4-5" wide so it doesn't break or take excessive set. That doesn't mean balsa is as good as yew or osage.

Once you have found said species, to be of any use it has to be available on a reasonable level, ie not protected, or in a national park, not so rare that you have to mount a national geographic expedition to find it. And a reasonable percentage has to grow large enough and straight enough to be at least as long as billets, let alone full length staves.

Even in the States yew and osage aren't considered commonly available for the lumber/cabinetmaking business. Yew on average grows very slowly 100 years + for a decent tree. Osage is quicker 20+ years, and is quite renewable. Nevertheless there is a large enough supply to feed the selfbow, hobby/industry overthere. If you can't supply a species wood at a frequency that matches, low expectations like the selfbow hobby demands for yew and osage, then the alternative species is not much of a viable alternative. Even with acceptable Australian species I don't know of anyone who is reliably supplying/selling staves for our selfbow past time. Sometimes an individual comes across a nice log, but that only supplies and handfull of staves.

Sure we have and the cultural cringe in Australia, where some Australians poo poo anything produced overhere for an imported product or idea. That in itself isn't right, or fair.
Conversely just because something is Australian , it doesn't necessarily mean its superior than something from overseas, especially if that overseas something is the benchmark.
We need to be objective, and demonstrate factually how and why something new is superior to a benchmark, before jumping the gun, with wishful thinking and no proof.
Several bows of the new species wood would need to be made, different weights and lengths, of a narrow elb design. They would need to exhibit low set, even though the stave was basically straight, not heat treated. The bows would need to be shot many thousands of times each, to see if they degrade with set, loss of cast, or fracture from work. Do the hard yards before making the claims and you will have my full attention and support.

Hamish.

[archangel]

Hamish,

I have to say that you are quite right. But I think the responses from Yeoman's thread will continue to be speculative and hypothetical by nature until someone can prove them otherwise. After all, we are several centuries behind the English bowyers and still a long way from developing an established body of proof. My interest in picking up Dennis' suggestion was not to try make any claims of an "easy fix" ... timber being timber, even boards of the same species and age can vary so much in their properties. I think its great that this forum is available to share some theories and hopefully they can played with and new bows created. This is the one tremendous advantage we have as 'new-age bowyers' .. access to such an amazing collective of knowledge.

[Hamish]

Yeah, I know, I sound like a party pooper. I think it would be good if there was a concrete correlation between certain properties that would allow us accurately predict what woods could rival osage and yew. I'd like to think the correlation can be found. It will take someone a lot smarter than me(which isn't much of a stretch) to figure it out though.
A bow is about the most highly stressed application for wood that I can think of, so not many of the thousands of species are likely to be ideal, if you want them to equal osage or yew. There are plenty of species that are acceptable if you modify the design of the bow, so finding wood becomes more about getting stuff with straight enough grain, free of defect.
The hard part in research is that around the time alot of the early work was being done, between WWI and WWII fibreglass replaced the focus on any one wood for (self)bows. I don't think any of the old research has scientifically nailed the exact scientific properties in wood that make a good bow. The closest I have found is the elastic limit( different to MOE). Much research and experimentation was not continued, as it was no longer seen as necessary.
With trial and error we can make good bows. Finding out exactly why any particular wood makes a good bow may not
be that important to alot of bowyers once someone discovers a species that is readily availble for us to use.

I don't have the space, or money( machinery/ transport) to cut and properly store wood on a large scale. The people in the industry that do, don't have the know how, or the will to bother cutting and seasoning for bowyers. Why go to all that trouble when they can be less selective and still get a good price for their wood from other uses.
Despite my apparent grimness I am still positive, that things will develop and improve. There is a niche for someone to fill, and it will happen eventually. Govt grant anyone?
Hamish.

[Dennis La Varenne]

Hamish,

I think you are missing the point of these speculations.

Tried and true wood species are fine so far as they go. They are not common or readily available in Australia. We Australians are beginning to do what the northern peoples did for themselves over centuries or millennia. They have laid the groundwork for the qualities which bow woods need to have. We need to find woods in Australia which perform at least as well or even better using those groundrules.

The use of mechanical properties will dramatically shorten the amount of emipirical work needed to be done to discover a good range of suitable woods

Rather then waste a lot of time going through a huge amount of rather blind empirical testing, we are attempting to shortcut the decades or centuries of work which resulted in the settlement on those northern hemisphere species that we all know about. The Americans were handed the experience of the Indians on an archery plate, so to speak, as had the Europeans from the heritage of their forebears. We Australians had no such prior history from the Aboriginal Australians*

The simplest way to go about it is to use the known mechanical properties of Yew, Osage, Hickory and other known species as baselines for comparison with Australian species whose known mechanical properties are available to us. Otherwise we would be wasting years and years on useless species as often as not.

You are making the wrong assumption that Dave, Archangel, Perry, Lou and others are being definitive in our speculations. We are not at all. We are quite aware that there is much empirical work to be done.

We are just trying to bypass the less productive species by using mechanical properties as guides.

For myself, I have used the ELB as the standard which proves the suitability of any wood specie and I know of two Australian woods (Queensland Red Ash and Victorian Red Ironbark) which give results every bit as good as any of the four Yew staves and finished bows which I have imported over the years, and I would put Vic Red Ironbark up against Osage Orange any day. Most of my bows of both ELB and flatbow have been made from Australian grown Osage, sometimes of extraordinary quality. Both these Australian species make fine ELBs as well as flatbows. I have made both from them. I am now looking at a rather skinny ELB of close to 60lbs and a dainty Holmegaard of 55lbs made from Vic Red Ironbark.

For instance, with my and my mate's limited experience of Vic Red Ironbark, I rate it as producing consistently better bows than the average Yew or Osage I have used. Osage tends to be to be brilliant or very ordinary I have found.

Whilst my use of Qld Red Ash came from advice from Jeff Challacombe who told me of a bloke making bows from this 'Soap Wood' in his youth, the selection of Vic Red Ironbark was made entirely from looking up its mechanical properties after a mate, wondering if this very straight rough barked tree which grew in profusion close to his house, would make good bows.

What we are speculating about earlier in these posts is attempting practical application of principles.


Dennis La Varenne

*There is good evidence of use of the bow and arrow by aboriginals in the Cape York peninsula in the mid-1800s. See the book 'Queensland Frontier' by Glenville Pike.

[jape]

I couldn't get that spreadsheet to open so I can't compare the MoE and MoR figures you have to mine.

In the tables I have then for Victorian Ironbark Red, they are MoE dry 17 (GPa) and MoR 135 (MPa). The other species of red ironbark (broad leafed and narrow leafed) both found in NSW are similar so should be just as usable. I will spend some time later to see if I can find other likely woods.

Grey ironbark is higher in both tests and has a lower density so could be even more suitable if I have understood the posts above from more erudite people than me.

I did a lot of carpentry, joinery, antique restoration and building in the UK.
From the empirical testing of woods, my experience of Australian Timbers as a crapenter (stet) is as others have stated. In this country the quality and performance of any particular species when tabled is only a VERY rough guide as climate, micro-climate, soils and terrain vary more than do the distribution of species.

And in my personal experience the hardest and most difficult job of all is to actually identify the damn things! I have been in the bush with saw-millers, local builders and Dept. of Environment officials and had different typing and naming of the same bloody trees.

However, I have some access to a rough but working sawmill in Central Victoria if anyone wants to get serious and spend time locating, cutting and milling local timber ready for drying and testing.

jape

[jape]

What sort of timber sizes are we looking for? I assumed it isn't necessarily small diameter if we aren't looking for perfect sapwood/heartwood combination as with yew? Would a good yew have been a foot in diameter to get say half a dozen quarter sawn billets? Should we try for that or look to saw out of larger diameter? Most aussie timbers have thinner sapwood relatively I believe and a different growth style anyway, in terms of annual growth rings thus I doubt we would find a yew replacement.
But then Dennis talks of sound aussie self-bows. Can you tell us please the billet/stave type we would be looking for Dennis from your experience here?
Are we talking just 'd' profile self-bows or a marketable combination?
Thoughts please. I have free time on my hands and a liking for timber but no experience ever as a bowyer.
I can get a couple of different Boxes, Messmate, Ironbark, some Gums, Black wattle and some stuff called 'cherry oak' locally which is smaller and not common but about the place.
jape

[Hamish]

Dennis, I understand the point of the speculations. I even agree with the idea, as I said earlier, it is as valid as any other method we have as a starting point. I'm not saying don't try it, or you can't make bows from other timbers. I just don't think its the magic bullet, that some seem to think it is to find wood that is superior to yew or osage for bows.
A flatter wider bow design within reason removes the need for a wood like osage or yew if you want to make a bow from most other timbers. Unless you stylistically or culturally like the elb design this isn't much of a problem.

Hypothetically say we have a wood X. Its an Australian native, makes a sweet bow of any design you might want to employ. Its pretty hard to find but you can occasionally, get full length staves, easier to get billets.
You find out the MOE, MOR, ADD etc. They sre all extremely high ratings, much higher than yew or osage.
We now know wood X has excellent MOE, MOR, and ADD. It would be easy to come to the conclusion that other woods with similar stats will make similar performing bows. It sounds logical, on the the surface, it makes sense. We then attribute these properties with success for a bow. This is not necessarily so.

The type of stresses a bow undergoes are not the same as what MOE and MOR measure. These tests are more suited to engineering structures like bridges and buildings. How much load they can take, as columns or beams. Basically static tests.Yes there are similarities, but they are not entirely the same. They also don't take into account factors like fatigue, from the multitude of times a bow needs to bend and return from, and the greater distance of travel.
Good bow wood can survive dynamic stress. I don't know if we have a unit that successfully measures a woods ability to take extreme dynamic stress,and not break or take undue stress.

The elastic limit, which is different to the MOE and MOR was touted to be a potential. It is supposed to be the psi before the wood loses its elasticity, and takes an undue set. From what I can find out virtually all the research bodies, dropped these recordings because the averages were found to be too unreliable as a predictor for stress. Try to find the recorded average elastic limit of some of our arcane hardwoods, and we might have a better starting point than just MOE and MOR.

Say that we find the listed elastic limits. This would give us the information on how to design the ideal width, and depth for a flatbow, to maximise a staves potential. This is not the same as designing an elb. If the wood was found to be able to make a narrow, deep flatbow, then there would be a strong chance that it be able to survive the stress of an elb. The wood X might then be scientifically called a rival to yew or osage orange for bows, with their relatively unspectacular MOE, MOR and ADD.
I'm still not sure this would definitly give us the real reasons why wood X makes a great bow and that woods with similar elastic limits ratrher than MOE, MOR, ADD would make equally good bows.

Take yew, osage and lemonwood, as steam/heat bending timber. The first two have excellent reputations for steam/heat bending. Lemonwood however is reputed to have a poor steam bending classification, some accounts say it can only be plasticised by a chemical treatment. I know this is a different type of stress than a bow, or a beam, but it illustrates how 2 of 3 well known bow woods behave differently to this type of stress. Yew 1 is a softwood, osage 2 is a ringporous hardwood. Both are different in MOR, MOE, ADD. Lemonwood3 diffuse porous hardwood has stats closer to osage than yew, yet it doesn't respond well to steam bending.
What I am saying if there are definitive relationships between stats and the type of stresses, whether they be for bows or steam bending or whatever, they are complicated. We don't know them at the moment, or at least no one has published anything concrete that I know of.


Engineers thought they could do away with wood entirely by designing tubular steel bows. They were touted as superior to wood. The only problem the cast wasn't quite as good as the boffins suggested and they had the unfortunate habit of breaking over your head without warning. Same with aluminium bows. When fibreglass came along steel bows died a quick death.




There are wonderful woods with much better stats than either yew or osage in Central & South America. eg Snakewood, ipe, pernambuco, palmwood and probably a whole host of others too. All have been tried by native and colonial bowyers and as stand alone woods for self bows, none were prefered by the colonial bowyers, over yew or osage. Snakewood, not only beautiful, reputated to make a fine flight bow, has a reputation for breaking in tension, Ipe can too. Yes you can make narrow self bows from these timbers but their long term durability is wanting.
Palm wood has a reputation for eventually breaking from Shear, not directly in tension, or compression.
Most of these woods faults can be overcome with a hickory backing. It doesn't mean that by themselves these woods are superior to yew or osage for self bows.

The amount of myths in archery and in wood abound such as you can use lemonwood regardless of the run of the grain. I suspect the reason why lemonwood was so good, was that the people cutting and drying the timber new what they were doing. They didn't have the modern composites like we do and they didn't want to bother with the time and effort to make something if it was just going to break.
I'm betting the lemonwood cutters selcted straight going trees, sawed them without cutting across the run of the grain more than necessary.
Nowdays lemonwood is not as available, especially in Australia. Even now the stuff that is available isn't from Cuba. It s from central America, though I bet it is sawn to maximise yield of boards rather than for maximum grain orientation for bowyers. English bowyers say its not as good as the old stuff and back it with hickory to stop it breaking in tension.


I am getting kicked off the computer at the moment so I will finish later
unless everyone has been bored to death.
I have some ideas for Jape, or anyone else who is interested too, on cutting and storing wood for further experiments.

Hamish.

[Graeme K]

Hi Jape
Any idea about other local names for the "Cherry Oak" you mentioned. Or perhaps some sort of description .

Sent you a PM

Graeme

[jape]

I took a pic. Looks like a conifer but is softer and is a native, bark is fine wrinkles, dk. brown/grey, needles are soft, open, a bit like some junipers.
Always grows on the edge of bush, so may have a symbiotic relationship with eucalypts, height up to four five metres not much more. Can be multiple trunked, usually straight and I haven't seen any more than about 200mm dia.
I will try and get some leaf/seed pics if you need more.
jape

[Dennis La Varenne]

Hamish,
I think this is going around in circles now. I repeat, we are using the technical specs as a guide to selection only - nothing more. Nobody has said otherwise that I can perceive from the above. Nobody is making pronouncements on ultimate wood quality from them.

Jape,
The Vic Red Ironbark abounds in Central Victoria and less commonly in Gippsland. My mate and I make underbark bows AND milled bows with no regard to sapwood at all and they work fine. Yew seems to be the only bow wood I have ever heard of where the use of sapwood as a natural backing has some advantage.

With Australian woods too, forget about annual growth rings altogether. They count for nothing and can be disregarded. They just don't present the problems that they do in deciduous trees. Like tropical hardwoods ours have growthrings which are 'well glued' together. There are other problems such as gum veins and sap inclusions which are problems.

Both of the Australian species I have verified and used (I have used others but was unable to verify species, but they still turned out well anyway) have had a large proportion of sapwood to hardwood in trees which have come from trees with around 45cm diameter trunks and much smaller. The actual heartwood comprised less than 25% of the diameter and didn't show in the bow except in a slight amount of colouring on the belly occasionally.

The all sapwood bows performed excellently and was quite heavy as is enabling smallish sized bows for the draw weight.

I would suggest that you forget about any sapwood/heartwood combinations unless the sapwood comes naturally as a thin rind under the bark, and even then it may not confer any particular merit. But, try all combinations and see what happens for sure.

As a rule of thumb, I firstly look for good mechanical specs, then find out where I can get the wood. In some logging coups, you can get what you want if it is only a 'rubbish' tree which will be burnt.

After I have the wood, roughed out a near-bow stave, sealed and dried it, I will always make an ELB first with a high belly camber of around 75-80% and at least 6 feet long. If it is successfull and doesn't fret, I will guarantee that wood to make any kind of selfbow.

You can make a short ELB if you want to test a wood to destruction.

Using Tim Baker's standard of no more than 1.5 inches string follow immediately after unbracing (mine are mostly less) I consider the wood is sound. I apply the same principle to ELBs as well a flat bows, AND (horor of horrors) I ALWAYS BEND THE BOW INTO REFLEX BY ABOUT 2 - 3 INCHES IMMEDIATELY AFTER UNBRACING TO MINIMISE STRING-FOLLOW DEVELOPMENT AND HAVE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM - EVER!!!

My preference is for the ancient European designs - out of sentiment of course - but they can be guaranteed to do the job of a hunting bow of any weight you care to make 'em.

Grey Ironbark is a northern wood which Glenn Newell has had a lot of experience with and regards VERY highly. I would drop him a line. He visits Ozbow quite often.

Lastly, Jape, you need Excell on your computer to open Dave's spreadsheet. It usually comes with Microsoft Office. I can be redone as a Word document with a bit of mucking around.

Graeme,
The Cherry Oak Jape refers to, if he is talking about the stuff I think he is, may well be the Wild Cherry (I cannot find its botanical name for the time being) much loved by the Sambar deer down here.

It grows prolifically in the Mountains down here and I was surprised to see it often in the flat country around Bendigo and in the Wellsford (???) State Forest just East of Bendigo.

There are males and females. The female grows a small whitish berry around February which eventually reddens. Sambar love 'em. The trunk, which has rounded buttresses all around it extending up to the branches, has fairly smooth very dark brown fairly thin bark which is somewhat scaly. The canopy, which has a generally willowish shape, has 'leaves' which are more like a droopy connifer. It is a good shade tree and the Sambar will often camp under them if they are in a good lookout posy.

Under the thinnish bark, there is a fairly narrow 'margarine' sapwood layer and a very dark heartwood which is very hard. The trunks are fairly short up to the branches, commonly not more than 5 feet in a good tree. The whole is not often taller than 10 - 15 metres, but I have seen them 40 - 50 cm through the trunk.

Does that sound like your 'Cherry Oak'?


Dennis La Varenne

[Dennis La Varenne]

Jape,

That is the exact tree I was describing to Graeme too. Yours is a small one. Cherry Oak must be the local name for it. It's official common name is Wild Cherry I believe - which is how we Eastern Victorians know it. I will have to ferret around a bit to find the botanical name.

In the eastern mountains it grows in among Eucalypts, often in their shade, but tends to have a fairly cleared area around it, probably because big mature trees which have a more rounded canopy than yours throw good shade.

Dennis La Varenne

[rory]

My home in Victoria lies in the East gippsland hills of the great divide is full of that Wild Cherry tree. Samabr deer use these 'trees' as signposts in the bush and rub trees as they stick out like dog's balls with their european looking green foliage.

I said 'tree' because they are actually a parasitic growth, which connects itself to the root system of Eucalypt trees, hence the usual 'dead ring' around the base of these plants that Dennis pointed out.

I dunno about bow material, but I love em for the deer they guide through the bush

[jape]

Exocarpos cupressiformis, is an Australian endemic plant species commonly known as the native cherry or ballart. The species is found in sclerophyll forest on the east coast of Australia.

It is a small tree (or large shrub), hemiparasitic on the roots of other trees. The leaves are reduced to small scales and the stems are the site of photosynthesis. It superficially resembles the cypress. Its flowers are arranged in clusters on short spikes; the fruit is a globular nut on a short stalk, as it ripens the stalk swells and turns red, like an inside out cherry. The fruit is 4-6 mm long and is edible.

The wood is coarse-grained and was historically used for making furniture, gun-stocks, and tool handles.

I think thats it, Dennis and Rory, some difference in growth and description with the local species here (lighter wood, golden brown inside, no buttress).

It resembles she-oak hence the local name I guess.

[Hamish]

Jape, All the species you mentioned would be worthwhile testing. I would be dubious of the native cherry. I have one in the yard and it loses big limbs everytime we have a wind storm. In fact it is down to half the size of what it used to be. Still worth trying though.

The problems that I have encountered with well meaning local people who sell staves is that they leave the wood in sections that are too large, ie quartered or half logs. Even with the bark on and the ends sealed many species in large sections develop cracks as they season. Usually the denser they are the more difficult they are to season without faults.

Insect damage, borers not dealt with when the wood is freshly cut, or being seasoned. Leaving wood out in the open for weeks, or on the ground, fungal damage. I have lots of "prime bowwood", that I have bought or people have given me. More than 2/3 ends up as unsuitable, because the guys just cut it stashed it in a shed, it it developed cracks , faults and insect damage,swiss cheese.

If the bark is removed to allow inspection or treatment, its safest to protect the back with another finish to stop checking on the back. Several coats of PVA glue is about as good as anything
Try to hack off any insect damage before the bugs have the chance or inclination to burrow deeper. Try to follow the grain(not easy unless the sapwood is strongly differentiated)Some species need to be sealed on all faces to retard drying too quickly.

You can make a bow that is shot full of bug holes, or full of checks if there is enough wood around the flaws. But its easiest and best to have the odds stacked in your favour by having clean flawless wood.
A seller can't justify premium prices if they sell a second rate product.


Choose straight trees to start with. Avoid those that don't grow relatively straight, or that look straight but have a corkscrew pattern in the bark.

If the tree species rives cleanly. Its best to rive, rather than saw and thus
ensure the grain is as straight as possible on all sides. Split off piggyback staves if possible.ie tangential splits on the pointy heartside to maximise any stave output. Assists speed of drying and reduces the chance of internal cracks and honeycombing from being stored in too large a section.

If the species doesn't rive cleanly because of interlocked grain. Saw it into staves along the grain which isn't hard if you are dealing with a straight trunk.

It s much safer to rough a stave down to a slightly oversized stave blank,tips left at max' width. Seal the back, ends, and the areas around the dips. Its a lot of extra work but gives you the best chance for sucess.

The right dimensions for a blank, that's difficult. Woods that you already know need, or you suspect to need wide limbs , a little over 2" wide is good. 12" middle section full depth 1.75" deep. Limbs 3/4 deep.
Wood that you know will provide an elb, anywhere around 1.5" square, down to 1" sqare for real top notch stuff. You can remove stuff off the belly.Handle dip area full depth, then tapering to 5/8" at the tips.

Alot of this stuff is trial and error. Heavily dependent on your local climate.
Longbowsteve at Blackheath, just needs to seal the endgrain and he can basically forget about the blank, and it won't check. I am only an hrs drive away from him, towards Sydney. My microclimate is shocking in comparison. I have to seal the entire surface of stuff like ironbark to prevent checking during summer. I can bring air dried "seasoned"dense desert species back from the timber merchants, seal it with shellac only to have it develop cracks.
European ash is different, I can split or 1/4 a log, seal the ends, strip the bark off and leave the undersurface unsealed. The stuff dries quickly and without degrade. Same with blackwood, or european oak.

Some of our eucalypts, native ashs are reputed to develop cell collapse, and need to be reconditioned with steam. I don't really know how that would effect performance as a bowwood but it doesn't sound good to me. I can't speak from experience here. Many of these timbers are used for tool handles after treatment, but the type of stress is different to that which a bow undergoes.
Hamish.