European wood for longbow

[FilipT]

You can follow dimensions posted on Norwegian warbows website. Also, heat treat the hazel to avoid unnecessary set, heat treating would have prevented set in my hazel flatbow I posted recently.

[PatM]

I'm having a hard time believing Elm is extinct.  Even in devastated areas the tree still continuously produces saplings to small trees. which are what we use anyway.
  Seems a lumber guy would only consider lumber sized trees.

[loon]

Dutch elm disease.. ?

[Chris3kilo]

Glad to hear about hazel. I'm only aiming for 40-50lbs starter bow. Not for hunting. Made 2 new rough hazel bows today, looking forward to tillering.
Yeah dutch elm disease. But you're right PatM, only older elm trees get the disease so it should be possible to find a sapling. But haven't seen any yet, but maybe it's just to hard to tell the diiference from hazel for me? 
Stalker, gotta say, that hazel bow was awesome! When did you heattreat it? As green wood or when it was seasoned? And what method did you use?

[FilipT]

Pat, never seen healthy elm nor its sapling here in Croatia. They are absolutely devastated.

[FilipT]

Chris, forgive for unintentional disinformation. I meant to say that heat treat would have prevented set in my hazel bow, not that I heat treated it (although I wanted to HT it).
I edited my post now.

[Chris3kilo]

Sad! Can't help to wonder if it was the right method to cut down all the sick elm trees as soon as it was detected, instead of letting nature figure it out. At some point The trees are bound to build up some kind of immunity sometime I would believe...

[Chris3kilo]

No problem.

[stuckinthemud]

Hazel responds REALLY well to heat treating - like 30% improvement in range for 5% increase in draw weight.  Do the heat treatment as the last step before applying finish; do this after tillering

[bubby]

Any buckthorn or black locust?

[Chris3kilo]

Stuckinthemud aha great info thanks! So I got a heat gun, would that do for heat treating? And should I put on oil before this?
Buckthorn and black locust is only to be found in peoples gardens here in DK.

[stuckinthemud]

heat gun is perfect.  some people use oil, some do not, depends on what kind of finish you want to use - if water based finish then you cannot oil the wood as the oil residue will reject the water

[Chris3kilo]

Linseed and paraffin finish i think. So I'll oil it first to avoid burning it.

[Frodolf]

I, too, can't believe elm is actually extinct in Denmark. Like I mentioned in another thread, I don't live too far from Denmark (globally speaking) and we've got the disease here too. Sure, trees die left and right, but there are a lot of saplings still, and far from all big trees get infected. Also, worth thinking about is that you can still make good bows from infected trees. IF they got the disease fairly recently. If you see a tree with a dead branch or two at the top, and some branches looking healthy, the tree just caught the disease and will make a bow. You may have to remove a growth ring or two, but it'll work. If the bark is peeling off, it's no good.

Hazel, ash, maple, juniper, elm, rowan – all fine. Laburnum, hawthorne (which I'm sure grows in Denmark – it grows in north Germany and Sweden), lilac, and hornbeam are probably there too. I'm guessing there are places in Denmark where yew grows too. And then the fruit trees – plum, apple, pear, cherry ... Any selje-røn nearby?

Personally, I don't see there being a great difference in what kinds of wood make a good flat bow or (English) longbow. If it works for one design, it probably works for the other. Some are of course better suited for heavy warbows, unless you feel like making a 9 foot bow, but for medium weight bows (35-55 pounds or so) of either ELB design or flat design you can get away with using a lot of different kinds of wood. Some has to be made longer or wider than others though. But it's doable. Wether it's possible to make a particular bow from a particular piece of wood is largely a judgement call and the ability to make that call is something you can only learn by doing. And doing a lot of it. But you seem to have the passion for it, so welcome to the club! :-) 

[dragonman]

There is not many trees in denmark so why not buy some good bow wood from else where?, trading wood is probably as primitive as making a primitive bow!!! If you want a good bow! buy some good bow wood...