new wood experiment- honeysuckle sapling bow advice

[richpierce]

We have a lot of woody honeysuckle in hedges here and I found the shoots work well as arrows.  The wood is white, fairly hard, has almost no apparent grain, and the shoots seasoned well.  They are tough and have good spine.  I harvested a trunk that was 6' long and 1 and 3/4" thick at the butt end and 1 and a half " at the small end.  I have not made sapling bows before but want to experiment.  Suggestions?

"D" bow with flay belly?
"D" bow with decrowned back and round belly?

Other ideas?

[leapingbare]

i donno if it will work... Back when i lived in N.C we used Honeysuckle to make friction fire and if u know anything about friction fire you know that you use soft wood.

[mullet]

    I dunno, The Honeysuckle In my front yard is kinda soft. When it dries out it starts to get like rolled up cardboard.

[Minuteman]

I don't wanna upset you Rich  but could it be you've mis-identified the wood?
 Honeysuckle around here is a vine and there ain't a 3" piece thats straight. Never heard of a honeysuckle tree....
 Been wrong before though.

[Minuteman]

 I googled some pics of a honeysuckle tree so I stand corrected.
 Split the stave you got and sinew back that sucker. I bet it'll shoot then. Sinew's magic I hear!

[Hillbilly]

Amur/Tatarian honeysuckles are large woody alien shrubs that seem to have pretty tough wood and are extremely invasive.They all need to be all be cut down and used for something  I've made a few arrows from it, and they work well for that. You'd just have to try it and see.

[richpierce]

You guys are right.  I made a quicky hatchet bow from a large trunk that was decrowned, roughed to bow shape and quickly dried indoors (did not check).  The bow was D style, 68", 1.75" wide at the middle.  It drew to 35 pounds at 26", took a wicked set, started dropping in weight to 25 pounds, then popped a splinter off the decrowned back.  It would have been a rabbit or frog killer at best, made for 25 pounds it might have stood up.