Wood Types And preformance

[Marc St Louis]

If all you build are hunting bows then you most likely wouldn't notice any difference.  It's when you start building for performance that you start to see differences and when you see differences within species.

[JoJoDapyro]

As stated. The bowyer holding the tools seems to make part of the difference, while the wood I would assume also makes a difference. If one were to take one design for two different woods there is a possibility that 2 shooters could be made. But that isn't always true. Take Osage vs. Juniper. One would work as a longbow style, while the other more than likely wouldn't. While a short backed style would work with both. I guess my way is to try, if it works try again and see if it was pure luck. Not every chunk of wood is the same.

[Badger]

   Something I have noticed is that on the occassional self bow that does keep up with the laminates in every case I can think of it didn't take any appreciable set.

[bubbles]

I feel like heat treating might help even the playing field between a selfie and a perry reflexed laminate.

[Badger]

  Heat treating has certainly narrowed the gap between the two. If you look at published performance levels in TB1 before heat treating had become popular they were markedly lower than they are now.

[George Tsoukalas]

Do I think it is worth the time and effort to make a wood backed bow?

I guess I don't. No interest anyway.

I've made hundreds  of bows and not one wood backed bow.

I just love making selfbows. I seem to favor osage and hickory these days.

But I've made bows black locust, osage, yew, maple, red and white oak, hornbeam, hophornbeam, elm, Aus. pine, ash, lemonwood, most of the hickories and probably some others I can't remember.

Arachnid, you'll find your niche.

Jawge

[Badger]

  I prefer self bows also George. A backed bow is considerably easier to make than a self bow once you get the process down. I guess a board bow would be the easier. I find self bows more satifying to work on.

[George Tsoukalas]

Yes, Badger, board bows are easy provided the bowyer chooses a board with straight grain.

I guess I lean more to the primitive side of bowyering. I've never seen a Native American wood backed bow which is why I've shied away from them.

I wish I kept records.

Arachnid, think about keeping records.

Jawge

[mikekeswick]

joachimM - Right on.
Learn the properties of your materials. Go and build a bridge out of wood then go build one out of steel....they can both do the job but they would look very different if built to carry the same load.
Without knowing the properties of your materials you are just guessing. Guessing can get you close but it's all in the details.

[arachnid]

Since my resorces are limited, I tend to relay on other people`s experience. I don`t have the time and money to
experiment too much and most of my bows comes from boards.
I`m glad this topic caused you all to spill some knolege on us mere mortals.....

[joachimM]

joachim +1
Did you also measure the properties of bamboo as a backing??

Just to clarify: i never measured anything, just used existing data. As for bamboo: depends so much on the species, and there are many of them. Moreover, within a bamboo shoot properties even change markedly, from less tension strong at the base to stronger near the tip.
So bamboo is difficult to pin down

[BrokenArrow]

I started with laminates (about 25 bows) and found the tri-lams out performed those with the single glue line.
I have moved on to the self bows and would not go back to laminates as they are too clinical.
Osage is my #1 and yew a distant second. I am trying red elm and mulberry next, suggestions?. Also sinew backing my short ones.

[joachimM]

Crooket arrow told me there a bow in just about any piece of wood. If you want to take the time to let it out. I've found out that's very true.

And credit should be given where it's due: that's exactly what Steve Gardner's mass principle is all about. Look at the mass of the bow and how it's distributed, and any wood species can yield a good bow if you adjust the bow design. Thanks for one of the greatest advances in understanding bow performance.