Birch?

[ryanfromcanada]

Very much a begginer here but im having an idea (which is never good)

I want to try and make a first bow. I have no easy access to red oak boards or any hardwood boards for that matter. So my plan is to try and make a bow and there are some nice birch trees that i have acess to.  So i'm going to cut the tree and de-bark rough it out and season it in the method it dictates in the tbb4. So my question is does the above even seem resonable, in terms of white birch being a useable bow wood.  If so the design i was thinking of would be a pyrimad style 2 1/4  wide at the fades  1 1/2 at midlimb and 3/4 inch at the nocks with a draw weight of whatever that turns out to be at 26 inches draw length


Am i way off here or might this just work

Input?
Thanks
Ryan

[half eye]

made bows out of paper birch as well as arrows and they worked just fine....they were fully quartersawn though so dont know about stave birch bows ....but it seems if you can make one at all, then the wood is at the very least...useable. It will probably be pretty "grainless" like maple (not to much figure to the wood)....if that's what you can get, I think you ought to at least try it.
half eye

[KenH]

Birch (1260) and Red Oak (1290) have nearly the same Janka Hardness ratings (a measure of compress-ability) compare that to Ash at 1320.  All within the range of species variability.  So Birch should compare favorably to Red Oak...

[El Destructo]

Paper Birch...River Birch...both make really nice Bows...don't expect 65-75 pound Monsters....but a nice 45-55 pound Bow is very doable

[adb]

I've made several birch board bows. Keep them wide, flat and longish, and like El D said, <50#. A pyramid design is perect for birch... 2" at the fades.

[tetaxidermy]

I've been eye balling a birch myself might have to give it a try after my osage bow.

[hermitking]

The thing about birch is that it is more fragile in tension than the  more popular woods.  It takes more careful tillering when making the bow.  If you stress it before the limbs are properly tillered it is more prone to have slinters on the back.  I also noticed that it often grows with spiral grain that makes cork screw staves when split. As far as I 'm concerned such a stave can not make a safe bow.  If you find a straight grained birch you can make a bow out of it.

I advise that you do not stress/bend the limbs until they are very close to finish tiller.  Birch can not stand excessive strain like osage can so be more careful and treat it with tender care.  Make sure you dry it out thoroughly before you string or shoot it because green birch takes a permenant set very easily, thus string follow becomes a problem.  Even dry birch is prone to a lot of string follow.

Athabascans used a long narrow profile but did not stress them with a normal brace height.  Strung, an Athabascan birch bow is still relatively straight and the string is kept off of the bow hand by a seperating block.  This tells me that they had problems with string follow and the wood often weakened with use, thus they simply strung it with almost no stress.  The advantage was that they could keep it strung full time.

I would prefer to make a birch bow with wide thin limbs, and if I could I would back it with something.  Unbacked it would probably be unreliable and short lived.  With sinew backing and wide limbs, you could be sure to have a durable, usable bow, even if it is not the best wood choice.

[Jude]

Birch has come up in discussion on another post, and I'll state here as well, that I did not have good luck with paper birch in central Alaska.  Hermitking found it weak in tension, and I found it weak in compression.  The dimensions you stated might work out for you, because if it is to work, it needs to be wide, thin, and long.  I tried pretty standard 2" wide 68" long overbuilt flatbows, and they all failed in compression on the tillering tree.  Good luck, heck, I understand the Mojave natives used willow in a deflexed design, and it worked for them.  Having had the good fortune to live there as well (the Army only buys the most prized real estate), that is about the only thing that grows straight there, so they had little choice.

[El Destructo]

I have two Birch Bows that I have been shooting for 5-6 years now,,,neither one shows any signs of giving up the Ghost just yet....if you know how to tiller....then there should be no problem...and the Twist can be compensated for also...You just have to work with what You got

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[NTProf]

Also, not all birch is the same. Yellow and Sweet (Black) birch tend to be denser than white or silver, similar to maple (at least the birch I have access to).

[Jude]

I've been wanting to try yellow birch for years now, but I was on the west coast for the last six years.  Now that I'm back in New York, I plan to swing over to my brother's farm in Vermont and snatch up some yellow birch, hophornbeam (Ironwood, but we knew it as Hardack when I was a kid), and beech to play with; there's even some hornbeam (Blue Beech/Ironwood), if I can remember where it grew after being gone 21 years.  I don't think he'll let me touch his hard maples though   I'll have to get my butt home from Iraq first, but that has never proved to be a problem yet.

[ryanfromcanada]

I have a chance at an osage stave, would that maybe be better to start off with?

[El Destructo]

Osage is very forgiving wood...but you have to be faithful to a Ring  ...and not Violate it in the Least...or She will blow on you...If this is your first Bow...I would go to George's Site...and practice on Boards at first...and save the Good Wood for later on....JMO

[ryanfromcanada]

Osage is very forgiving wood...but you have to be faithful to a Ring  ...and not Violate it in the Least...or She will blow on you...If this is your first Bow...I would go to George's Site...and practice on Boards at first...and save the Good Wood for later on....JMO

Ya thats what figured but i have been unable to find any hardwood boards being sold any where near me. I have one more place to try before i call it quits on the board search.

[Jude]

Might as well try with the birch then.  What have you got to lose, other than time?  I had bad luck with my birch staves, but they were free and it gave me lots of practice at tillering.  The last one had compression fractures all up and down each limb, so I at least knew I had tillered it evenly.  Others have had good luck with it, and I may have harvested from an area with poor growth characteristics.  I think they would have made it if I had chosen a bend in the handle, rather than a rigid handle design.