Favorite SPECIES of bow wood ????

[Zion]

AHAHAHA muffin's a smart cookie!

[ionicmuffin]

either that or a smart mouthed cookie

[Joec123able]

Pine, Cyprus, and willow are also some of my favorites

[sleek]

Elm, down flat, no thought needed on it. The grain interlocks more so than hickory, is more moisture resistant than hickory, therefore less likely to take set, less likely to check than osage, needs no ring chasing like many woods, is easier to find growing straight with less character, heat treats wonderfully, and takes dry heat and steam bending well ( not as good as osage or mulberry but well enough ). For all these reasons, I give it a +1 over ALL other woods and can prove it. ALL HAIL THE NEW KING! Honestly, why is elm considered a second string wood?

[Joec123able]

Hell I've made two elm bows back in my early bow making days and it held up to me beating the hell out of it it made one of my favorite bows which was a D profile bow it broke when I over drew it about two inchs but it's very good wood

[Squirrelslayer]

Balsa I like a challenge

yep i like balsa, just not for making bows SS

[rossfactor]

Sleek, I don't think anybody considers Elm a second string wood (or if they do they haven't done their homework).

My bias is obvious, but as I have said many times before, purple leaf plum is in my preferred bow wood over Osage, Yew, Ocean Spray and many others. I'll work any bow wood, and I love them all, but 9 times out of 10, plum is my go to when I need to make a choice. The reasons are many: outstanding compression and tension strength, very elastic, heats treats very very well, steams and bends into almost any profile, frequently grows pipe straight, the most workable wood I have ever used (loves a scraper, rasp, drawknife, or file and it sands very well), durable wood that is very light in the hand for its strength and durability (I've abused plum bows to no end, and they very, very rarely break), absolutely gorgeous with flecks op peach colored yellow, you can leave the bark on smaller staves for  an awesome camo effect, it's diffuse porous and much less vulnerable to reductions in cast and set under humid conditions than most woods I've worked with.  I am dead serious when I say that in my experience, plum has been a better bow wood than Osage and Yew.

But none of these are as important as the number 1 characteristic of plum wood: "bowyness"  The wood loves turning into bows.

Gabe