Split or saw

[Pat B]

As cleanly as the rest of the staves split, I wouldn't hesitate to split off the heartwood and split out 2 staves from the sapwood. I've found that starting a split in the center of a stave and work out towards each end will generally give you a cleaner split.

[gifford]

That's a great pile of hickory splits, kudos. I've had good luck with hickory, made 'em wide and flat (ala The Bent Stick). Never did any heat treating of hickory but others say you can do it. That's enough hickory to keep you making bows for good long time.

[Allyn T]

Alright Pat I'll try it, I don't think my saw is up to ripping logs, if it doesn't work I'm blaming you : )

Gifford I am lucky with that pile I should be through it in about 50 years at my current rate

[Pat B]

I'll accept the blame. 

[bradsmith2010]

I split the stave you gave me,, it split very nice,, I am in the process of making a bow from the unuseable heartwood as we speak, it was from the belly split,, have one layer of sinew on it, as Pat mentioned it should be good for the belly,, I hope,,    I used alot of hickory when I lived in Tennessee,, I used heartwood and sapwood with positive results,, and did see alot of trees that looked like your stave,,and I made alot of board bows as well,,

[Allyn T]

I'm gonna go for it tonight Brad 
Didnt you get 4 splits off that stave?

[RyanY]

The hickory I’ve worked with had very soft heartwood and excellent sapwood. I’d opt for splitting it.

[bradsmith2010]

yes but the 4th was a little iffy,, but its looking pretty good with the sinew,, I have hopes for it,,

[willie]

The hickory I’ve worked with had very soft heartwood and excellent sapwood. I’d opt for splitting it.

I have found softer heartwood in a hickory board I bought once. that doesn't tell you much about your staves, but when I was scraping with the card scraper, I could tell the difference between the heartwood and the sapwood  by the way the card cut. needless to say, the heartwood failed early in the tillering of that bow. you could always do some test scraping on some corner areas if you make a facet first. Dels idea to facet the side corners before deciding about widths available is prudent too.

[Allyn T]

Well I started to split it but got called away by my wife. Guess I'll have to finish it tomorrow.

[bradsmith2010]

yes just thinking out loud, but knowing you want a long draw,, getting enough width, would be important,, and not so much how many staves you can get,, its always a trade off,,

[Allyn T]

That is true Brad. I don't know if I'll get three out of this but 2 for sure. I learned about removing the cambium from my first stave so at least the back is intact 

[Eric Krewson]

I had a similar load of hickory, two 6' logs, I split off some of the heart wood to reduce the weight so I could get the staves off the ridge to my truck, green the heartwood split off easily. I made the initial split in the log with my chainsaw, everything else spilt off the halves straight and clean.



This was late cut wood so the bark wouldn't slip off. I popped a chalk line on the splits and used a skill saw to kirf the wood for the final split to staves.



 Being stave rich I didn't go for the max and had plenty of scrap for all my friends BBQ grills. I ended up with 17 perfect staves.



I gave almost all these staves away, mostly to my bow making students, the tree was downed by high winds and I hated to see it go to waste. I have plenty of osage and haven't made a hickory bow in years.

[Digital Caveman]

I'm rather envious of at all that wood.  Hickory doesn't grow this far north and I haven't seen a fraction of that much good wood for years.  We do have as much HHB as I can handle though.

[Allyn T]

I started the split with my machete trying to use it like a froe. I'll see how it finishes out. I think I tried to save too much heart wood so now my sap wood might be thin on the edges