Wide growth rings (hardwood)

[Tom Dulaney]

A user here was telling me about how a certain wood wasn't good, because it had wide growth rings and wasn't dense. I'm not sure what "wide growth rings" means; I guess it means the growth rings are thick.

Anyway, I have some Chinese privet that has very wide growth rings, I mean a trunk of privet the same circumference as your calf might only have 3-4 growth rings. Yet Privet is a dense, hard, fast wood, and by most people's accounts it makes a good bow. And wide growth rings should make it less likely that you will violate a growth ring if you want to scrape wood off the back, right?

So, are wide growth rings really a problem in a dense wood like Privet?

[Pat B]

Dense wood is dense wood. I prefer medium thick rings in general but good bows can be built with and thickness of growth rings. I do prefer not to have only 1 ring in a limb but I've seen some good bows built like that.
 I'd say to build the privet bow and give us your opinion.

[Selfbowman]

I built some paper thin Osage and rings that where over a 1/4 " thick. The thick ring one was not as dense. I could tell by it being quite a bit lighter than a stave of equal size. I built the thick ring one wider and thicker. It made a good bow with good cast . Arvin

[joachimM]

Density is way more important than ring thickness. In most conifers (softwoods), narrow rings are good predictors of high density, so you'd rather have a narrow ringed yew than a thick-ringed one. In hardwoods (deciduous trees) ring thickness is often not a good predictor of density.

Go for the privet

[Springbuck]

Yes, and this depends on species, but growing conditions, too.  I've had some very hard dense elm with tiny rings, and some with big fat, almost 1/4" rings, both from the same thicket, and about the same size tree.

[Selfbowman]

Yes, and this depends on species, but growing conditions, too.  I've had some very hard dense elm with tiny rings, and some with big fat, almost 1/4" rings, both from the same thicket, and about the same size tree.

Yep and that's what keeps us guessing. Arvin

[DavidV]

It's more about ratio than ring thickness. Less earlywood means there's less air and more wood to do the work, at least in ring porous woods. I also think consstency in the rings are a good sign, as in I'd rather have every ring be 1/8" than a mix of really thick and really thin rings. I have nothing to back that up but that's just my experience.