about to make some hickory board bows, need advice here

[Sidmand]

K it it looks alot ike black walnut,I've messesd with slot of hickory,maybe different s
I n species ?

could be.  we have about 5 or 6 different types of hickory around my location, and this place I got the wood from sources locally.  It could be any one of the different types of hickory we have here.  They did have walnut there to, it was a pure dark to medium brown throughout.  But, I could be wrong about the species, it could be something else.  I hope it's not though.

[Pat B]

Did the lumber company say it was hickory? Could be pecan, a hickory.

[Sidmand]

they said it was hickory.  It was in the rack next to what they said was Ash.  Thought about trying it, as well as some hard maple, but couldn't find anything that was remotely strait grained.  They were selling lumber that was more for furniture and such, very highly figured for the most part - not great for bows.  But very pretty.

[bushboy]

If you go to go to the wood database on Google you should be able to nail down the species.

[Eric Krewson]

Hickory heartwood, the amount of it varies from almost none to only a couple inches of sapwood and the rest heartwood.

I have cut some trees that had about this ratio but don't know what kind of hickory they were.

[Sidmand]

thanks for all the input and help folks.  I am going to work it as hickory, and back it with bamboo, and use what I have learned here to maybe start working on a bow or two this weekend.  Going to go with the following plan:

• make my cuts to take advantage of the straightest possible grain I can get
• try to keep the cuts with either all sapwood, or all heartwood.  I know I won't be able to do that on at least one bow/cut, but I am thinking I can get one limp of sapwood and one of heartwood, which would make for a pretty cool looking bow if I can tiller it out properly.
• longest length I can get, and start with 1.75 wide.  Trap the back a little
• full width from center to about 12" from tip, then taper to 1/2 or 3/8 inch tips.  Bendy handle with a floppy rest, will probably build the handle up a smidge with cork or leather.
• Going to do pin nocks, cause I am terrible at making nocks/string grooves

hopefully I can get between 50# to 55# at 27" on at least one of the tries here - that is my hunting weight preference.  And I want to get one kids bow out of this for my wee daughter, and maybe another for a friends boy. 

I will start a build along thread, and hopefully I can pick yall's collective brains as I go through this.  Thank you for your help thus far.

[Eric Krewson]

You don't want to make a 1.75" wide bamboo backed hickory bow. You will end up with a hickory bellied bamboo bow with very little hickory in your bow.

Go all the way to 1 3/8" if you want to but you want to have more hickory in your bow than bamboo.

[Sidmand]

ok, so less wide so that there is more hickory to work with.  Makes sense, and you guys already said that but I didn't get it till Eric reminded me.  So I might go all the way to a bit south of 1.5", maybe even 1.25", so long as the wood will allow it.