Exotic Woods

[BigNocker]

I was going to pick up a board of and get my feet wet with making a board bow.  There seems to be dozens of exotic woods out there with janka hardness ratings between Hickory 1820 an Ipe 3640.  I used to sell hardwood flooring and we saw alot of new species introduced from south america and china over the last 10 years.  I dont remember seeing much on bow making with alot of these exotics out there since there use in the US is fairly new.  I'm just wondering if there are exotics out there that poeple are having good luck with.  I'll list a few:

Santos Mohagany
Rosewood
Cumaru
Lyptus
Purple Heart
Canary Wood
Gabon Ebony

[Justin Snyder]

Rosewood Camaru and Purpleheart will work fine. I don't know about the rest since I haven't tried them. Justin

[BigNocker]

How did they turn out.  Were they awesome looking?  I can imagine the purple heart looking beautiful.

[Justin Snyder]

Purpleheart with osage is one of my favorites as far as looks. Search for purpleheart and you will see a few. Justin

[sulphur]

jatoba is not on your list but makes a great backed or selfbow.  its usually pretty easy to find a good straight grained board.  its also called brazillian cherry.

[Keenan]

 Jatoba will work for compresion but to brittle for unbacked and crystals very easy. About the same with purple heart.

[Easternarcher]

The Cumaru that I have, has a fair amount of swirl in the grain....will it work with bow backing? I got a couple of 7ft. planks 5" wide I'd love to try...after my run-in with grain run-out in my IPE, I figured it would have to go for risers and tips instead...

I still shoot a hick backed Jatoba that I think I posted here well over a year ago. It did develope a small crack on each limb but I backed it with rawhide and superglue. Still shooting!

[BigNocker]

Yesterday I got a Cumaru board 7' x 8"  by about a full 1-1/4 - 1-1/2" thick.  I searched threw a dozen boards and found what looked like a perfect board cut with the middle of the ring arc almost perfectly set in the middle of the board end giving it straight grain on all sides that run the entire length of the board.  Having never done one and never having had anyone show me in person how to read the grain, and only going based on what I've learned from books, I fell like this board could produce four 72" staves that would make fine bows and I paid $26.

Easternarcher,
What do you mean by "swirl" in the grain?  One thing I notice about the cumaru simmiar to Ipe and some some other, is that it splinters off easily.  I got a couple nasty ones just getting it strapped to the Jeep.

[Marc St Louis]

Had an interesting failure with a bamboo backed cumaru (tonka) a few years ago.  The wood just buckled in slow motion as I got it tillered to 28".  I won't be trying it again

[Easternarcher]

Yesterday I got a Cumaru board 7' x 8"  by about a full 1-1/4 - 1-1/2" thick.  I searched threw a dozen boards and found what looked like a perfect board cut with the middle of the ring arc almost perfectly set in the middle of the board end giving it straight grain on all sides that run the entire length of the board.  Having never done one and never having had anyone show me in person how to read the grain, and only going based on what I've learned from books, I fell like this board could produce four 72" staves that would make fine bows and I paid $26.

Easternarcher,
What do you mean by "swirl" in the grain?  One thing I notice about the cumaru simmiar to Ipe and some some other, is that it splinters off easily.  I got a couple nasty ones just getting it strapped to the Jeep.

I mean the grain is running all over. Very swirly! Will make nice risers, but I'm iffy on using it for belly wood. Finding straight lumber like this is tough here if not durn near impossible.