New member intro (& Wood List)

[zenart]

Greetings- 

I'm Ron from Huntington Beach, CA.  Live right on the beach. Not too much to hunt here 'cept California Girls… which is okay but that's for another forum I suppose. I mainly target shoot with a few ol' Bear bows. Want to get into other bows types.

About to make my first bow. Been lurking here for last several weeks soaking up some great info and I have to say, as forums go, this one seems to have some great fellas, all seem to be well-mannered, passionate and giving of your experience. Kudos to you all.

So far, I've had a few great pm exchanges with Adam (adb). I'm going to go forward with Maple backed Ipe for the inaugural try. Adam suggested I go for simple straight longbow.. nothin' fancy for first go. I'll be postin' up ?'s I'm sure once I've gotten underway. Got the Ipe, now gotta find Maple.

First question I have is need to make a tiller tree (keep in mind, I live in an apt) so where to find info/spec's on that.  I'm an artist (oil painter) so have the place covered with painters tarp anyway and no prob really using jigsaw, etc. But mostly using all hand tools.

Second question is I live close to lumber yard. They harvest 'at risk' and dead or dying trees in the area. Most ends up firewood but he did say they have some 7-8 foot pieces. Guy said they're mostly quarter sawn. They have a list of available woods, wondering if any of these could work for bows:

ALDER
AMERICAN ELM
BLACK ACACIA
BLACK WALNUT
BLUE GUM EUCALYPTUS
CAROB
CAROLINA CHERRY
CHINESE ELM
DEODOR CEDAR
LIQUID AMBER
RED GUM EUCALYPTUS
SYCAMORE
and I think there's more that comes in time-to-time.

Any input greatly appreciated! and I'm excited to delve into your bowyer world.
Thanks-  Ron

[BOWMAN53]

welcome to PA.  im in cali as well, bay area. tillering tree is real simple to make, just a board and some nails.

elms, cherries and black walnut are good bow wood

[adb]

Atta boy, Ron! Good on yah for joining up! Told you it was easy. Wealth of info and knowledge here. A tiller tree is pretty simple. I have a 2X4 mounted on the wall vertically, with draw length marks in inches starting at 14", and a round hanging dial scale inline on a simple single pulley. Here's a pic:

Got the scale off amazon for around $40. The plywood on the wall behind the tree is optional... you can just make small marks on the wall.

[burn em up chuck]

   welcome and just remember, you can't just make one  . cali & the northwest have a rich bow history good place to start
 or not.

                                                                                                                chuck

[NeolithicMan]

welcome!

[George Tsoukalas]

Welcome! I would avoid dead trees. Whitewoods that have been dead for awhile are not usable.
American Elm will make a nice bow.
Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/index.html

[SLIMBOB]

Welcome Ron.  Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.  Good Elm is about as good as it gets (that's in an alternate universe where there is no Bodark).

[Badger]

  Ron, I don't live too far from you. If you ever want to come by and use the bandsaw and hand tools to rough out a bow give me a holler. I live about 25 miles away in Torrance. Most of the Elm you see will be Chinese elm, excellent bow wood and works good as boards as well, not as fussy about slight run offs as some woods. Send me a PM and I will give you my phone number.

[adb]

Jeez... excellent invite. If I lived that close to Steve, I'd be in there like a dirty shirt.

[Arrowind]

Welcome!  If you really want to make bows this is the place to hang out.  these guys are very generous with their hard earned knowledge.  You'll be making some really nice shooters in no time at all!  you got some of the best bowyers in the world offering you tons o help and all in your first post!
Follow their advice and you will be in good shape!   Welcome aboard!

[bow101]

Try the Alder for making arrows, for bows its ........junk wood.    Alder is good for lathe work and other projects.

[Wiley]

Welcome fellow new bowyer, I'm sure you will find the people here to be very helpful. There probably isn't a question you can think of that someone here can't answer. Between the bowyers here there is probably very many centuries worth of experience. This is the place to be on the internet now that you have decided to make a bow.

I agree with adb in that if it's possible to set up a pulley tillering tree, it's a great thing to have. Safer than a tillering stick, and it's great for seeing how the limbs are bending in a more fluid manner than is possible with a stick.

Its best to try and find woods that were not cut dead, but I would probably still try some of the elms. If they were cut at first symptoms of blight, or cut to thin them out to prevent spread of disease the wood might still be usable. Ask the sawmill if you can go through their green side cuts. Sawmills generally discard, burn, or mulch this stuff. If the wood was just recently cut you can remove the bark and use that for the back. I just saved a beautiful almost 2" wide piece of quarter sawn white oak from a friend's sawmill, it was destined for the fire pit or smoker. Have some more scraping to do but the wood still seems very sound and I will continue. Was not stored ideally for bow wood but out of the rain and off the ground, no signs of rot. This type of wood is a bit more work than quarter sawn dimensional lumber, but I consider having a clean back to be worth that work. If this one works out I will be very happy to have as much white oak and hickory as I want for free. If it doesn't work out, i haven't lost anything but the time I put into it but I have high hopes for the current work in progress.

Best of luck on your maple backed ipe. Sounds like it has some serious potential if you can obtain a excellent maple backing and get the tiller right. I have a similar plan in my head that I hope to try soon but with white oak or hickory. Take the tillering slow, and have the folks here critique your tiller while your working on it, and I have high hopes you will be successful.

[4dog]

welcome your not gonna find a better bunch than these guys here...knowledge flows like honey...and so do the jokes..sorry you live in cali though were eve    8)rything is illegal ...or causes cancer.

[zenart]

Wow. WoW. WOW!  I'm overwhelmed by the welcome reception. You guys are the best. Would take about a dozen thank you's individually so I'll just give a: THANKS so much to ALL! Really, so cool.

I told Adam how intimidated I was jumping in the PA pool but with his encouragement I took the plunge. As a fine artist I just marvel at all your work. I mean, if you never shot a single arrow with these bows you could still frame 'em and mount on wall as pure art. Anyway, thanks again to everyone who took time to reply and I look forward to mixing it up with you fellas.

Adam- you mentioned first mark on tiller is 14". That's 14" from bow face? which would make it where usual draw length is measured.. Or is that 14" from right where handle rests on base?? So, scratchin' my head a little cuz if'n its from face and if you decide to build different style bow handles that would make different depth height down to the 14" mark. Follow me? Just want to be clear on it cuz I'm a unclear on how to make sure the bow is measured for draw length while tillerin'.  Not sure it's okay to mount on apt. wall but I'll make somethin' work.

btw- I saw Adam's awesome Maple/Ipe bow in the Feb BOM line-up and it really inspired me. I read Ipe gives a great cast and as Adam said, it's forgiving to work with so gonna give it a go. Got enough Ipe for like 6-8 bows (24 bucks, can't beat that huh?) so I'll just start whittlin' n prob breakin' but that's ok, sooner or later one's gonna decide to live, right?

"Jawge"- Thanks.. I've read your site front to back like 6 times so far already.. hope some of it sticks. 

Badger- My God, thanks!! That's incredibly generous of you to offer including me in your shop ( and I hope, maybe gettin' inside your head a little too    ). PM to arrive shortly!

So, next week I'll cruise over to the yard I mentioned and stumble around, see what's what. Prob give update on what I find, just because.

Thanks again everyone!
- Ron

ps. 4dog- Yeah,true, if it's fun it's illegal here. But, like I said, you can't find Cali Girls anywhere else..   Are they worth cancer? maybe

[Pat B]

Tell your lumber guy you need wood that hasn't been exposed to the elements. You don't want spalted wood, you don't want figured wood(at least not for selfbows) but you do need sound wood that can take lots of bending and flexing with good recovery.