what % of trees yield staves? Character bows historically made?

[richpierce]

Of good-looking black locust or osage orange logs say 6-8" in diameter (reasonably straight and bark is not twisty), I am happy if I get 2-3 good staves.  If I get 4-6 staves from such logs it's a mighty good day.  Seems I always find internal knots, mighty twists, etc that would only make a "character" bow from the rest of the logs.  And needless to say, it takes some searching to find a straight tree in the first place with these species. 

With hickory or ash, it seems I can often find straight trees with few obvious knots and make staves of most of the splits.

I wonder if the character bows we see nowadays were ever made by paleos, or if they just looked till they found good straight clear wood.  I realize that in areas w/o good wood- far north, desert, etc- they must have used whatever they could find that would work.

[tom sawyer]

I thought I was the only one who couldn't find a decent stave.  Yes lots of problems lurking under apparently clear bark.

I envision them using more branches that are smaller and less prone to these imperfections.  I don't think they made many character bows.  Character bows are cool but I don't see many that shoot as well as a plain-jane bow.  I also think that a lot of the more gnarly stuff is found in hedgerows where there is a lot of light and a tendency for trees to branch out.  Naturally growing trees in a valley, grow much taller and less branchy.

Try billets, its a lot easier to get decent billets.  I bet there's four times more billet wood out there, as staves.

[George Tsoukalas]

Paleo bow were probably made from saplings.  They are easier to work with stone.  Jawge

[Pappy]

I'M still looking for the prefect stave,every time I think I have one it shows me different.
I doubt they made many character bows either,I would suspect like Jawges and Lennie said ,they used limbs and saplings at least if I was trying to build one with a rock that is what I would
look for.
   Pappy

[Sidewinder]

You guys comments are so encouraging as I read stuff thats not in the books by guys that have the actual practical experience out side the box. Like not necessarily having to decrown an osage sapling. I've got one thats about 3" thats got a killer deflex or reflex either way you look at it and I've been wanting to do something with it and I think I just got the confidence to go for it. I am going to post some pics and get some advise on it.   Danny