walnut bow staves

[luke the drifter]

i recently cut down a nice looking and straight walnut tree about 6-8 inches in diamter.  i hand split it and found the heartwood not exactly straight, sort of a very long stretched out s-shape.  the heartwood covers about 5 inches across of the split wood and is uniform in width all the way down the log.  i hope this is making some sense.  my question is this--do i shave all the whitewood down to the heartwood before i start working the wood into a bow or can i use both the whitewood and the heartwood seperately or save some of the whitewood for backing of the heartwood?  will the straightness issue be a significant factor in working the bow?  any advice about working around the straightness issue?

 

[El Destructo]

there is no need in taking the Sapwood off of Walnut....in fact unless I have a large thick stave of Walnut that I can split into more than one stave....I don't mess with that....Pictures would be very helpful in understanding what the problems are with the Wood