What is the strangest wood that anyone has ever used in bow making?

[bob the boywer]

I cut down a few trees lately for several clients. I promised them that I would not take it to the land fill, I would use it as fire wood or use it to make some bows.

I have live oak, crape myrtle, red oak, red bud, bradford pear, and sweet gum. All are at least a foot in diameter except the crape myrtle which is about 3-4 inches in diameter.

Does anyone have any experience with crape myrtle or live oak?

I've made many red oak bows, but I've never tried bradford pear. I have a hard time splitting bradford pear for fire wood not to mention a six foot length of it.

I never really thought of sweet gum as a bow wood, but it is very plentiful around here. Has anyone worked with sweet gum?

What is the strangest wood that anyone has ever used in bow making?

The oddest wood that I have ever worked with is some type of olive wood from a pallet. It did not turn out very well due to the excessive number of nail holes. I used a 25 year old sledge hammer handle to make a spliced bow that turned out nice.

[GraemeK]

Crepe Myrtle is fantastic bow wood -- hard to get a straight enough bit of large enough dia .
The stuff is almost unbreakable.
I have had the best success with roughing it out green and tying it to something to dry -- just use the surface under the bark for the back.

Graeme

[ricktrojanowski]

DanaM from the site specializes in using strange wood.  I'm pretty sure it's the snow and the cold that took him to that world.   I guess I would say his Sumac was the strangest that I have seen. 

[DanaM]

Ya my Sumac and I also have a Tag Alder in da works Speaking of snow picked up about 10"
last night And it warmed up. Its 10 above now beautiful weather

[El Destructo]

A white Birch (paper birch) Sapling....turned out to be a nice shooting really snakey 45 pound Bow that is still kicking 4 years later

[Justin Snyder]

Willow. 

[Pat B]

All of the woods you mentioned will make bows. I would say the gum would be the last one I would try just because of the difficulty of splitting it. I always wanted to try live oak as it is very dense and strong. Any of the smaller live oak, especially the dead standing stuff is an excellent material for knapping billets.
  Pat

[Marc St Louis]

Witherod.  Beautiful wood and very strong and elastic

[Badger]

    Ocean spray had to be the biggest surprise wood in my life, super strong and super flexable. Takes almost no set. Steve

[james parker]

i made one out of rhododendron/and mt laurel,one was broad leaf and one was narrow leaf,both were  mighty crooked,( I MEAN CROOKED) but came out to be fair bows .i ended up giving them away,wished i had kept one. since im living in the mtns now ,i think ill build another...robustus

[Shooter_G22]

has anybody ever tried cocobolo for a bow...  saw some a few months back at a wood shop / woodworking store...   very expensive but i thought it was a nice deep color and thought of it for a ow project once i knew what i was doing to not waste the expensive stuff.... 

[armymedic.2]

too pretty for a whole bow i think.  it looks awesome when it is cut through somewhere so the fades would be amazing.  looks great on tips.  i rememebr hearing it is oily and toxic, so watch out if ya use it.  never tried to bend it so can't help ya there.makes great pistol grips!

[George Tsoukalas]

Back about 15 years ago I used  a red oak, kiln dried bow as per Tim Baker's instructions in TBB#2. I thought that was pretty strange at the time. But it  worked and have done it many times since. Other than that I'm pretty normal. Jawge

[adb]

Tamarack.

[1/2primitive]

has anybody ever tried cocobolo for a bow...  saw some a few months back at a wood shop / woodworking store...   very expensive but i thought it was a nice deep color and thought of it for a ow project once i knew what i was doing to not waste the expensive stuff.... 

I saw a bow made with it at Mojam last year. It was boo backed, though, so I don't know how the tension strength is. It was one of the prettiest bows I have ever held. I'm determined to make one....if I ever have a lot of money to waste.
From the looks of the bow, the bend strength of Cocobolo is low (it was thick for its draw weight-around 30lb). It could be just that piece of wood, though.
      Sean