In taking a birch, how young is too young?

[Fumbles]

     I live in northern Manitoba, Canada and I have access to a lot of birch. However, most of it is new growth and has an average diameter of approximately 6". Is that too small to make use of, for bows or arrows? I've made 6 functional bows so far, but all of kiln dried wood (and some practice survival bows, but I don't count them as they have a very limited life span.). I'm living in a fly-in community now, and I have no access to dried lumber, I've been collecting some different woods to dry for winter experimenting, but not any birch yet.
     Also, I just recently viewed a ocean spray sapling build-along on the forum. Has anyone tried using a birch sapling, and if so, how did you fare?

[lostarrow]

The White Birch is a fairly soft wood like Poplar, but if you can find some Yellow , you would be better off. 6" would be plenty of wood if that's all you have .I'm guessing you have allot of Black Spruce , maybe White Cedar,Speckled Alder (possibly). Do you have any Choke Cherry or Sugar Plum(Bill Berry)? Those last two will work well also.What happened to your other bows?

[Fumbles]

     I'll have to look up what a Yellow Birch looks like before I go out this afternoon (don't know what I'm lookin' for yet). There is a lot of Black Spruce and Aspen. And again, I don't know what Choke Cherry or Sugar Plum look like yet.
     As for my other bows, a couple are back in Ontario, and I had three up here but I foolishly let a person unfamiliar with bows try to shoot with my workhorse. It was... a 55#@26 Hickory longbow I made 5 months ago (I had shot it about 3 000 times, this person simply felt he had to show off his manliness and pull it back to 30"). Right now I'm using an Ash flatbow I made my wife (the other bow I brought is a just a 15# kids bow I made 6 months ago).

[lostarrow]

Yellow birch has similar bark but is yellowish instead of white and peel of in small sections.Unmistakable. If you do a google search you can find out what it looks like as well as the cherry. The sugar plum is ,I believe, Saskatoon berry.

[ojibwatbowyer]

If you can find large diameter birch it should work, keep it long and wide. A friend of mine made a deadly 50lber at about 60in ntn. It did chysal in one spot where he had a knot though. And we pretty much live in the same region as you far as living in the North goes 

[Dauntless]

Up north Birch is probably a solid bet, you could even try making one of those North Eurasian composite bows (compression spruce belly, birch backing and siyahs).

Saskatoon is a great bow wood too if it grows where you are. I've never been north of Gimli...

[Fumbles]

Thanks guys for the help. I'm going to take some of the birch and give it a go (paper birch). There a few around with a larger diameter (apprx. 10"). And thanks for giving me a heads up on other bow/arrow woods that may be in my area, I'll be keeping an eye out for them from now on (really hope I can find some Saskatoon berry, if not just for the berries alone).

[RobWiden]

    I've found that I need to make birch bows quite wide, about 2 3/4" for a 50# @ 28" bow 66" long. It seems to need a lot of belly to avoid chrysals. A 6" tree would be too thick at that width, so I decrown it to get the width I seem to need. (maybe my tillering skills, or lack of). Heat treating the belly is a big help too.  Rob