What kinda break is this?

[k-hat]

Well folks, I was a-tillerin away this morn on a silkbacked hackberry bow i been working on (thread's on TG), had her going nicely to 17", not overdrawn and one pull this morning brought a snap!!      Not sure if it's a wood thing or a me thing.  Any input would be appreciated so i can prevent this in the future.  Never had one break like this:

 

 

 

Thanks in advance bowfolks

[Auggie]

I'd call that a clean break.  I've had red oak do that one time,I think it was fate. Never did see any real flaws in the wood,and really hadn't stressed it at that point either. Don't sweat it,start on a new one.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Looks like a tension break to me, quite clean. 

[Pat B]

Possibly too dry!   It broke i tension and the way it broke straight across leads me to believe it was too dry.

[Mark Anderson]

I'd say tension break. To dry probably, but I do have two logs of red elm that I got about fifteen staves from and the first three broke just like that. Ever since, I have chased a ring and used silk or rawhide. No problems since.
Mark

[Pappy]

Dry rot I would say,make a little bow out of what is left, ,just a few inches long and give it a bend test and see what happens. I do that on most white wood bows I build now if I am not very sure of where it came from and how it has been cared for. Sometime even if I know I will do that,don't take long and will tell you a lot and save a lot of heart break.
   Pappy

[k-hat]

Thanks guys, I'd like to blame it on the wood too   I cut this one down in april/may, roughed it out over several months.  This stave has been in my garage since i debarked and split it out.  If anything, i was worried about it not being dry enough (then again, we have been in a drought for about a year, and even in that short time it coulda gotten too dry). 

Looking closely at the outer layers, they don't look as healthy as the inner ones, actually kinda spongy looking.  The deeper the rings are, the healthier they look.  Maybe this was not the ideal tree, may have a bunch of firewood now (this was the first stave from 3 logs).  I tried chasing a ring on this one to start with, but it was near impossible (super thin).  The inners are thicker, so maybe i'll try chasing on another stave one of the very deep rings. 

Well, if that don't work, i've got some osage seasoning i can start roughing out to near dimensions, and there's always boards until i have dry staves.  Stoneberg has an osage stave for me i started awhile back and need to get back to as well. 

[Tortoise]

Either too dry or the wood might have been too porous, I had red oak do this on me once for these reasons.

[Buckeye Guy]

Dry rot is what I call it to Pappy!
Yes it can happen even in live trees !
Guy

[crooketarrow]

  BAD
   A stave seasoned right will break across the back but stay together at the (splinter)belly.  Like PAPPY said.
  DRY ROTTED wood will break clean.

[JonW]

I have made 7 bows of Hackberry. I have had the same breaks that you experienced on three of them. The three that broke were from the same tree and therefore I would tend to gravitate towards the wood being to dry or somewhat dry rotted.