cut or wait on bow staves?

[PatM]

Well the growth ring HAS to thicken it and it reaches maximum width in the fall. Perhaps the transport of nutrients back down to the roots  for winter engorges the cambium area but that wouldn't be actual thickness of wood being laid down.

  You could always tie a wire tightly around a tree in spring and see the rate that it actually starts to pinch the trunk.

[DC]

I'm sorta doing that at the moment. I'm growing some hazel suckers and I wrapped a string around it with a tag saying it's 1.25" in dia. I'll keep measuring through the summer. I'm getting impatient to harvest them.

[PatM]

Consider string stretch and typical growth ring thickness as well. A wood like Ash or Elm can put on a 1/4 inch or more per summer while HHB or Maple might be lucky to put down 1/16.

[BowEd]

masonred......Ideally I like to cut osage in the fall.Debark it and take sapwood off.Shellac back and ends.Letting it dry slowly in the cooler weather at first to not check at all.White woods when the sap is running good for easy removal of bark.If leaves are appearing in the spring the sap is running.
Some of my hickories here that I like have growth ring counts of 25 to the inch with early wood looking almost like dots.Very strong intergrained stuff.Thicker ringed white woods cut in the winter can have the ring chased with the draw knife but not those thinner ringed ones.Like to pull the bark off of those.

[crooketarrow]

  I was once told by a old farmer let me bow hunt and cut Osage on his 445 ac er family farm. I'm sure he'd cut 100's through the years for fence post. He was in his 70's then.

  I ask him the same question. His answer was those dang old trees. Well that's easy, dang boy when ever you can. Everybody knows that.

He wasn't cutting the Osage trees for bows but the same concept.

  Heres what Crooketarrow told me about early rings. Your going to scrap off that dead early wood.Of a well seaoned stave.  Your go to get down to get rid of your dead early wood. To that first good ring anyway.  Thats the way I was taught. We all do the same, at least I thought you all did it that way.

  Worked for me the last 23 years.

  Here's another tid,bit some one once told me 20 years ago.  TAKE IT WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. I don't know if it's true. It came form someone grandaddy gobbler hunted with in SC. He was a barrel maker I was told. Has nothing to do with bows. But I've come to beleive it.

 Early wood has neither compression or tention. It's the woods rings that has compression and tention. Away for the tree to grow. Seasoned it acts as a glue holding the wood rings.

[Springbuck]

  This shows a misunderstanding of how a tree grows a ring. Whatever problem you had  was not related to the time of year. When the snow is just melting the outer ring is the same as it was at the end of the previous growing season.
[/quote]

No, this wasn't the problem.  Upon inspection it was obvious that I was either using early wood on the back or a paper thin latewood ring.  I might be off by  a few days or weeks on the timing, as it was 6 or 8 years ago this happened, but I'm sure this is what was happening.  All the other growth rings were fat, solid, and well established.  These showed a grainy layer covered by a very thin layer. 

We do get drought years and the like around here.  None of the trees I had cut from this same grove gave me any issues and they were all cut in the winter, summer, or fall.

[Pat B]

I prefer to cut whitewood about this time of the year. When I peel the bark I want last years mature ring to be my back ring. If you cut later in the summer the back ring will be what was laid down this growing season and IMO it is immature.