What to do with hop hornbeam staves?

[Nate]

    A friend recently gave me a couple hop hornbeam logs. I was ecstatic as hop hornbeam doesn't grow here so It would be my first chance to work with it. Unfortunately there was a catch, as there almost always is. The logs had been harvested with a comercial feller buncher and the bark and outer wood were pretty badly violated the full length and most of the way around. I split the logs and sealed the ends but then discovered that the staves were checking all over the backs because of  the crushing damage on the outer suface. Desperate to salvage what I could , I used my bandsaw to rough out some staves, removing outer wood in the process. So essentially I made board staves with most of the wood.
   My question now is,  should I proceed by attempting to reduce the staves down to one intact outer ring , or , can I leave the backs flat and treat them as if they had simply been decrowned? I understand that horn hop beam is strong in tension so I'm thinking that it may hang together with a less than pristine back. However I'm not sure if I would loose performance with the flat back. I've not worked hhb before so I've no idea how difficult it would be to chase a growth ring.
I'd sure appreciate any advice.         Nate

[PEARL DRUMS]

I would probably slice them into slats and make backed bows, just my opinion. My number one concern above all is how long they laid around before you grabbed them.

[Nate]

He said they had been cut ten days or so before he gave them to me and as soon as I got my hands on them I went right to work. They've seasoned now for a few months at 65 degrees and about 40 percent humidity. Pretty dry here in the winter so I kept them in a higher humidity environment for the first week. I wasnt sure if I might have issues with checking or warping but they seemed pretty stable. I have some hickory I could back with but wasn't sure if it was necessary. I guess making some shavings is the surest way to find out.

[PEARL DRUMS]

They should be okay. The problem with whitewoods is seeing decay or damage. Sometimes it looks just like healthy wood, but breaks the second you flex it. My friend and I have a batch of bad hickory that looks and smells like healthy hickory, but its not. We are a collective 0 for 4 using it. 

[Nate]

Yikes! 0 for 4 is not the odds I'm hoping for. This hhb tested surprisingly dense. I dried a sample out completely and did a sg test on it at .80 which is a fair bit heavier than I expected. However the damage from the harvester goes pretty deep in some spots and it can be hard to see. Maybe backing it is the safest route.

[Jim Davis]

With the tree only being down 10 days when you got it you have nothing to worry about from rot. As far as chasing a ring, if it seems impossible, try staining the wood to make the rings show up better.

H hornbeam often has very thin growth rings, in my experience (Maine), and you could probably chase a ring using a sharpened paint scraper. It's ring porous, so you won't feel any difference when doing through a ring. Have to do it all by eye.

Hope you can make it work.

Jim Davis

[Nate]

Thanks Jim.  My concern is mainly with tension strength of hhb. Having never worked with it before just not sure what I'll get away with. I love making unbacked selfbows but if I need to I'll back it. It seems a bit hard to work, or at least harder than what I'm accustomed to. I made a little test bow for my son out of some of the scraps , unbacked and with some growth ring violation,  but I chickened out and made it long and light. I guess I'll make some shavings and see what happens.     Nate

[PatM]

HHB makes  a  great decrowned and rawhide backed bow.

[Springbuck]

Don't worry about the tension strenght of the wood, but do worry about getting a clean ring chased or backing it, because itreally comes down to the damage it took, not the wood qualities in this case.

[Nate]

Thanks guys. It would just about make you cry to see how that harvester mauled the wood. Instead of pristine fibers ready to form the naturally perfect back now it's punctures and gouges up to 5/8 of an inch deep. Oh well , now it's time for Nate to man up and find another layer of that intact wood underneath it all. I have several staves so I'll play it safe with the first ones and then maybe "experiment" and see what it will let me get away with.

[Dakota Kid]

It was my understanding that because of the highly interlocking grain, back violations were of little concern as long as the areas were sanded down smooth an burnished. It would also make chasing a ring impossible. I've made two mollie bows from HHB where I smoothed damage and knots on the back by sanding, and burnishing. I left the backs plain/unbacked and have had no issues. In fact one of them is is my fastest hardest hitter. I have a hard time breaking the stuff over my knee after scoring. In my opinion it's the toughest bow I've seen thus far.

[PEARL DRUMS]

That isn't true, DK. Grain violations are never good in nearly all cases. That doesn't mean it wont shoot arrows for a bit before it goes BOOM. But it will go BOOM.

[Dances with squirrels]

I've decrowned hophornbeam and backed it with good results. I used both bamboo and hickory for backings. I also chased a ring on one and made a selfbow with it, and still shoot it.

[Dakota Kid]

Perhaps I'll invest in some rawhide in the near future then. Thanks for setting me straight.

 I wish I could remember what gave me that impression. I'm pretty sure I read it in a post somewhere a few years back, but trying to remember which one or even which site isn't gonna happen. 

[Springbuck]

  Pearldrums is totally right on this.  Decrowning is not the same as just hacking into and dinging up the back, for one thing.  And, yes, some woods with strongly interlocking grain will "take it" better than others. But pristine longitudinal fibers, whether an intact ring, a decrowned or board stave (carefully selected), or a backing strip, are the best bet.  If I ding anything much at all, I go down to the next ring, or chuck it.