Lilac likes to check

[jeffp51]

My neighbor asked if I could "help" thin his lilacs today.  I had brought him an arrow this morning that I made from shoots from his yard, and mentioned that they still needed thinning.  There was one big, old, straight stem--two inches wide and 68" long.  Super hard. The bark peeled like an orange.  I reduced one side, sealed the ends, shallacked the heck out of the back.  An hour later and the belly already has big checks in it.  If it works, I might need a quart of superglue to hold it together. . .

[Tree_Ninja]

Yeah, I had a 2"x4' one from trimming in my yard and left the bark on for 6 mo. before I cut into the belly. Overnight it was  ruined. I had suspected it would split,  but I didn't think it was that bad.

  Makes good string nocks. Close in color to yew sapwood.

[PatM]

 You need to cover the whole thing in sealer and put it in a plastic bag with a few holes punched in it.

[mikekeswick]

You need to cover the whole thing in sealer and put it in a plastic bag with a few holes punched in it.

+1
My two lilac staves are almost ready to have a go at now....i've had to be patient! One is a set of flawless billets 

[keef]

Worth the wait!.. I have made several slingshots from lilac and they are worth sanding down to ultra fine grade paper....The  finish is like polished glass. Once it is seasoned though, be prepared for some serious sharpening of tools...Tough wood!!

[Dakota Kid]

It sure is pretty though. Smells nice too.

[jeffp51]

The stave is back in plastic. any idea how long the seasoning process will be?  I am working on some arrows from the same cluster.  I already found that they become smooth as glass with 800-grit sandpaper.  smells great too. I am hoping I can make the stave work--eventually.

[Dakota Kid]

It's hard and silly heavy even after drying. I' don't know anything about how a lilac bow would perform. I use the pieces for inlays on trinket boxes. My piece was 2.5" at it's widest point and took about a year, however I didn't use a bag and just let it check the way it wanted to and worked around them. I know it will take at least a year. You could probably start checking it periodically anytime after that.

[russell]

We have tons of lilac at our place.  I'll have to keep an eye out for a "good" piece and give it a whirl.

[sumpitan]

I built my first lilac bow back in '01 or so, and reported my experiences some years later in TBB 4. The wood seems to have taken off since then 

Lilac is my all-time favorite bow wood. Extremely dense, hard and strong. Selfbows around 1" wide at mid-limb pulling 55 - 60# with barely a half-inch of string follow. Tough to season, as every lilac bowyer learns. I never cut lilac during the growing season, as that greatly increases the checking (and compromises the outer growth ring). Then, I reduce the staves to a floor-tillered thickness right after cutting, and keep them, bark-on, in a cool place for the first several weeks of initial drying. After that, I debark the staves to let the wood season in a reasonable time, and move them to a drier, warmer environment. From there on, it's weighing and waiting for EMC to arrive. Following this procedure, I have zero checking on my lilac staves, quite unlike the first several ones.

Tuukka

[autologus]

Hawthorn will do the same thing, I believe it starts checking the moment you think about cutting it.

Grady