Stave Harvest

[IrishJay]

I went out today and cut 3 trees, from left to right, apple, boxelder (ash maple), and hawthorn. The boxelder has a really night purple hue to the heartwood. Now I just have to get'em split and dried. 

[sleek]

That box elder has a neat look. You got more of that? Any pics of leaves that may be around still of it?

[IrishJay]

Sleek, no leaves left where I am. Boxelder looks almost identical to white ash. In fact that's what thought it was until I cut it and saw the purple. The only real way to distinguish the two without cutting is during the leafy season the boxelder will have the "helicopters" on it as it is technically a species of maple.

[PatM]

Box Elder is no bow wood and is quite different from Ash in many ways.

[bjrogg]

I would direct my attention to taking care of the Apple. I haven't used it yet but it is a good bow wood from everything I've been told. I agree with Pat. The box elder I doubt would make a good bow wood and is quite different from white ash. I know people who like it for turning on a lathe though. I have know experience with the Hawthorn.
Bjrogg

[loefflerchuck]

Hawthorne. Diffuse porous and a good bow wood. Make it as long as you can.

[stuckinthemud]

Apple is astonishing, especially in how easy it is to bend with a touch of heat, its a brilliant bow wood.  Hawthorn is easily the best wood I ever used for carving, some say it makes fabulous bows, some say its prone to breaking so go careful when you tiller it.  All the super-hard woods are tricky to season, so seal the ends and leave a lot of extra length in them to cut off the inevitable shakes that develop in the ends - just seen a post on Arbtalk where someone sealed the ends of wood with bitumen and got zero shakes...

[leonwood]

Split and seal that apple quick or it will crack. Don't know where you live but over here almost all hawthorn has some kind of bug eating away at it so I would remove the bark to check before you put in in your stash. Both apple and hawthorne are in my whitewoods top three and make excellent bows!

[Del the cat]

Nice score
Del

[George Tsoukalas]

Have fun. Never used any of those but heard that apple is good. Seal the ends. Jawge

[IrishJay]

Yeah, I've read that the apple and the hawthorn are good, so I'm going to get them split out and debarked today and get them drying. I'm not sure what to do with the boxelder, like I said above I mistook it for ash when I cut it, so while it's not good bow wood, the purple in the heartwood is pretty cool, so I dont want to discard it. I may find some other wood working use for it l, or cut a board out of just the heartwood and eventually back it with some other wood (or the dirty word fiberglass) to make a bow. But, I need to get some working bows under my belt and develop my skills alot more before I even think about venturing down that road.

[DC]

Take extra care de-barking. The back is the bow. You don't have to chase a ring with those woods so invest the time saved there in getting a pristine natural back. Then shellac the back and ends. I feel shellac is best because you can remove it relatively easily.

[stuckinthemud]

We have a lot less in the way of wood-boring insects over here than our American cousins so there's a lot less need to de-bark.  Personally I prefer leaving the bark ON as that prevents longitudinal cracks developing in the top layers of the wood.  If you get any of those then its all over.  If you do de-bark then seal the stave all over

[IrishJay]

Hawthorn cleaned up and debarked. It's a 60" stave. Thoughts? Am I at least moving in the right direction?

[turmoiler]

That purple color in boxelder isn't the heartwood, it is a fungal infection:
https://www.plantmanagementnetwork.org/pub/php/research/redstain/ and the wood is the worst among the maples, it is not suitable for bowmaking, maybe you can carve something with it