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white ash hardness?

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snedeker:
I'm workind down my first ash stave, cut Nov. 2005, 1/4" thick rings.  Seems incredibly hard in terms of rasping and scraping compared to what I expected, even though I have been working with hickory, bulletwood and osage most recently.  Could some moisture retention make it seem harder to work?  I don't have a meter.  Planning on a 69" straight flatbow for a corn fed  6'5" Pennsylvannia german farm boy with a 31" draw.

Dave

Kegan:
I know wood seems alot harder than normal when it gets too dry (and therefore brittle). Don't know about retaining it though.

Hillbilly:
Dave, usually the wetter it is, the softer it is. Seasoned ash is pretty hard , tough wood, they make baseball bats out of it. I've made a few out of ash, and it works pretty easy with blade tools, but like you said, it's tough to rasp and scrape, especially wide limbs like you usually have on an ash bow.

George Tsoukalas:
Dave, tiller well. I find it weak in compression. I've made darn few white ash bows that didn't fret.  Jawge

Badger:
    Had similar experiece as Jawge, have found some good white ash that was very hard and others that were very soft in compression. Steve

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