Ring count on yew …

[Hartung]

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[Bowbound]

You sure have been doing you're research.

Thank you for the invaluable information. 

[Far East Archer]

This is really interesting....

Do you know if the MR bows had a high ring count as 80+?
If so, would it not be true to say that those bows may be even heavier than we thought?

If 40 rings per inch can create bows 170+ pounds, a bow with 80+ rings would be amazingly heavy because of the density difference.
no? what do you think?

Maybe the salt water deteriorated the woods strength, and so the true weights were not able to be reached....
Though, I just throwing out ideas, no research done on my part.

[adb]

Hartung,

Your research is very interesting... thanks for sharing. I don't think (and you seem to have proved this) high ring count is essential for heavy weight bows. High ring count wood is certainly more dense, and is more likely to make a heavier warbow, but not exclusively.

I've included a pic of some Canadian yew (taxus canadensus), which is very dense, at about 50 rpi. In one 1/4" section, the growth rings are so close, it's hard to determine numbers, even with magnification. This stave made a fantastic target bow, but was not long enough for a warbow.

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[Badger]

    I finished a bow a few weeks ago where the ring count on the belly had to be near 100 rpi, I was not able to count it so fine. The outside rings abrubtly became far less dense and remained that way for what seemed to be about 40 years,maybe 32 rpi.  Someone suggested that it was likley loggers had removed the trees around it giving it more sunlight which made good sense to me. Still made an excellent bow. Steve

[Ian B]

I have also heard that the a high ring count is not a guarantee for a high lbs bow. High ring count does not mean that the wood is dense.


Regards Ian