dude, the little ryobi bandsaw is super cheap and works great for bow making...
if you buy boards for bowmaking, you get the benefit of no knots and so on, but you have to be choosy with the grain...watch the natural tendency of the board to warp and twist, cup and bow...
if you recurve, DO NOT USE THE RIFT SAWN SECTIONS. The straight up quarter cut section bent fine, with minimal cracking. Plain sawn (or simply, staves) bend well, too, from what i see on here. But the rift sawn sections (grain running at 45 degrees) present too much stress and even though i prepared the rift sawn stave the most (made it thinnest, cleaned up the rough edges most) it cracked the worst.