Some questions about the traditional bowyer's bible 1

[denisdu67]

Hi everybody,


My name is Denis, I'm french and I'm 16 years old. I'm new here. I have started making my own bows 6 months ago. I made 7 bows but my 7th bow is the only one that didn't break. it works good now. My 7th bow is made from hazel wood and is 22 lbs at 28 inches. that's not a lot but it's my first bow that works then I'm proud of me  

I will send some pictures of my bow tomorrow I think. I painted the back of it 3 weeks ago. I like it a lot. I started readinf the traditional bowyer's bible volume 1 1 week ago and I have some questions. pls answer my questions if you really know the answers because I only want to know the real truth



My questions are about the part "CUTTING AND SEASONING WOOD" written by Ron Hardcastle.


Here are my questions:

1) Is it possible that an Osage orange wood is mostly composed of "latewood" (black) and that another Osage orange wood is mostly composed of "earlywood" (white) ? Or it's not possible and then Osage orange wood is always mostly composed of 1 kind of wood between "earlywood" and "latewood".  For what I understood, Osage orange can be mostly composed of "latewood" and another Osage orange wood can be mostly composed of "earlywood".



2) Are all of these woods Osage Orange wood or they aren't the same wood ? (look at the picture and the caption below) (I want to be sure but for me all of these woods are Osage Orange).
(look at the picture that is attach to this topic, bellow I think)



3)  Is it possible that Coniferous wood is mostly composed of "latewood" (black) and that another Coniferous wood is mostly composed of "earlywood" (white) ?  Or it's not possible and then Coniferous wood is always mostly composed of 1 kind of wood between "earlywood" and "latewood". (same question like the first one but for Coniferous woods).



4) Ron said this: "Understand the significance of the above; in ring-porous hardwoods, latewood is the virtuous, dense material of which toxophilic dreams are made. It contains those special fiber cells which give the wood its springiness. In a word, latewood is "good" stuff. Earlywood, on the other hand, is, for a bow-maker, almost without virtue. It is weak, treacherous, has no springiness, and if exposed improperly on the back of a self bow can spell doom for the weapon." after he said "The better logs and staves will have thinner earlywood and wider, denser latewood. In other words, the less total additive earlywood, and the more total additive latewood in your stave, the better the wood and the better the bow will be."

Does that mean that it's better to have more "latewood" than "earlywood" for ring-porous hardwoods ?



5) Ron also said this before: "Coniferous woods such as yew grow in the same earlywood-latewood pattern as the ring-porous trees, such as Osage and hickory, but there is a significant difference with regard to the earlywood. In yew and many other conifers the earlywood has some strength and integrity, unlike the worthless earlywood of ring-porous hardwoods."

If I understand well here the "earlywood" of Coniferous woods is better than the "earlywood"  of ring-porous hardwoods, right ? and what wood is the best in Coniferous woods between "earlywood" and "latewood"?




I hope you understand everything well, if not feel free to tell me what you don't understand. That's difficult to explain. I hope that there are not a lot of mistakes as well.



Thank you very much

Best Regards,
Denis

[willie]

all of the pics look like osage.

Does that mean that it's better to have more "latewood" than "earlywood" for ring-porous hardwoods ?

yes,for all woods, actually

early/late ratio is all about overall density.   The denser a wood is overall, the less width is needed to make a bow.

and welcome to PA

[denisdu67]

thank you willie for your reply.


then if I understand well, the earlywood / latewood ration change in osage orange wood right ? an osage orange wood can be totally black and another osage orange wood can be totally white right ?



and Ron also said  "Coniferous woods such as yew grow in the same earlywood-latewood pattern as the ring-porous trees, such as Osage and hickory, but there is a significant difference with regard to the earlywood. In yew and many other conifers the earlywood has some strength and integrity, unlike the worthless earlywood of ring-porous hardwoods."

the best wood for coniferous wood is also latewood right ?



Is hazel wood coniferous wood, diffuse-porous hardwoods or ring porous hardwoods ? (he wrote: "the ring-porous hardwoods (Osage, ash, elm, hickory, oak, black locust, walnut, mulberry, and others), the diffuse-porous hardwoods (maple, poplar, and others), and the coniferous, cone-bearing woods, or softwoods (yew, cedar, juniper, pine, fir)."


Best regards,
Denis

[bownarra]

Hazel is diffuse porous.
To be honest I wouldn't worry about this stuff for now. If a bow fails then it normally has nothing to do with the composition of the rings. I've made great bows out of what the books say is low quality wood. You don't need great thick rings of latewood. Nor is it theend of the world if the stave has lots of earlywood.
Lower density woods = wider/thinner limbs
High er density wood = narrower/thicker limbs.

[denisdu67]

Hazel is diffuse porous.

thanks

To be honest I wouldn't worry about this stuff for now. If a bow fails then it normally has nothing to do with the composition of the rings. I've made great bows out of what the books say is low quality wood. You don't need great thick rings of latewood. Nor is it theend of the world if the stave has lots of earlywood.

Yes you are right but I only want to understand. For example I asked questions about osage orange wood but there isn't osage orange here in france. I won't care about earlywood / latewood ratio to make my next bow.
And answer my 2 first questions in my last message if you know the answers  

[Del the cat]

Hazel is diffuse porous.
To be honest I wouldn't worry about this stuff for now. If a bow fails then it normally has nothing to do with the composition of the rings. I've made great bows out of what the books say is low quality wood. You don't need great thick rings of latewood. Nor is it theend of the world if the stave has lots of earlywood.
Lower density woods = wider/thinner limbs
High er density wood = narrower/thicker limbs.

+1 exactly what I was thinking.
Most of the time you just have to work with the stave that you actually have!
Concentrate on the basics... getting a nice even curve on your bow and working in a methodical manner towards a target draw weight.
Hardest thing in bow making is getting your eye trained to see the curve, and learning how much wood you need to remove to achieve the desired effect.
Del
PS
I couldn't help laughing when you said you don't have any Osage. Worry about the problem in hand, the next one will come along soon enough!
My best flight bow is Osage that has very fine rings. When people ask me "what's the best wood to make a bow?" I reply "The piece you have!"

[denisdu67]

Hardest thing in bow making is getting your eye trained to see the curve, and learning how much wood you need to remove to achieve the desired effect.

Yea that's difficult.

I couldn't help laughing when you said you don't have any Osage. Worry about the problem in hand, the next one will come along soon enough!
My best flight bow is Osage that has very fine rings. When people ask me "what's the best wood to make a bow?" I reply "The piece you have!"

You are totally right.
I will send pictures of my bow and of staves that I have later. 

Thanks

[Eric Krewson]

You have a black and white picture of osage early wood late wood ratio. Osage is bright yellow when you cut it and darkens over time to a deep chestnut brown.

The early wood is often chalky and weak, this why we prefer osage with more late wood, like in the picture below.

In the center piece you can see the tree grew very slowly late in its life with the early wood late wood being just a blur, chasing a ring would be all but impossible and I suspect this wood would make a poor bow.

[denisdu67]

You have a black and white picture of osage early wood late wood ratio. Osage is bright yellow when you cut it and darkens over time to a deep chestnut brown.

The early wood is often chalky and weak, this why we prefer osage with more late wood, like in the picture below.

In the center piece you can see the tree grew very slowly late in its life with the early wood late wood being just a blur, chasing a ring would be all but impossible and I suspect this wood would make a poor bow.

Thanks a lot Eric Krewson

[Deerhunter21]

Another young guy!!! Glad your here! Welcome to PA!

[Eric Krewson]

Another thing; one would pick a ring to follow below the slow growth wood on the center wedge example, however, if I had a choice I would pick the ring ratio of the two smaller pieces. I have always gotten sluggish bows from osage with extra wide late wood rings. The two smaller examples produce the snappiest bows.

Now, this is north west Alabama osage, osage grown in other parts of the country may produce different results.

[denisdu67]

Another young guy!!! Glad your here! Welcome to PA!

Thank you, I'm glad that you helped me and that your are helping me

Denis

[Weylin]

When I first got into making bows I poured through those books as well. because I didn't have any real practical experience my mind tried to latch onto every detail, not being able to tell the difference between crucial information and "extra" information. It felt really overwhelming. A bit later I had the opportunity to build a bow from start to finish with John Strunk in his workshop. He is one of the authors in those books. When we started working on my bow I was talking about what I had read. Right away he said, 'forget all that stuff. It's way too complicated and it's just going to mess you up right now. There are just a few things you need to think about...' It was such a relief to hear him say that. That weekend building a yew bow with him taught me 100 times more than all the books I'd read. I walked away feeling confident about tackling my own projects. He had distilled the process down to a few simple principles and techniques that made perfect sense and felt doable and repeatable. Later, after I had built a few dozen bows i came back to those books and really enjoyed reading all the different ideas and perspectives. Things that had felt confusing or overwhelming made way more sense after I had already built some bows and had some context. I could take what I needed from each section and confidently leave the rest. So my advice is to get a clean, solid piece of bow wood, get a simple, tried and true, straight limbed design and focus on the basics of design and tiller. If you can find someone to work with hands on, that's the best in my opinion. Short of that find a straight forward tutorial that covers all the important steps but doesn't get too complicated and work with that. People can answer your questions a lot better here if you can say this is my piece of wood, this is the plan I'm following and this is the problem I'm having. Good luck and have fun with it!

[scp]

Wise advice, well said.

Just get a picture of a simplest long flat bow you like and start working on a hardwood board, figuring out how to carve it to end up with a stave that looks kind of like the one in the picture. Always use long and even strokes.

[denisdu67]

When I first got into making bows I poured through those books as well. because I didn't have any real practical experience my mind tried to latch onto every detail, not being able to tell the difference between crucial information and "extra" information. It felt really overwhelming. A bit later I had the opportunity to build a bow from start to finish with John Strunk in his workshop. He is one of the authors in those books. When we started working on my bow I was talking about what I had read. Right away he said, 'forget all that stuff. It's way too complicated and it's just going to mess you up right now. There are just a few things you need to think about...' It was such a relief to hear him say that. That weekend building a yew bow with him taught me 100 times more than all the books I'd read. I walked away feeling confident about tackling my own projects. He had distilled the process down to a few simple principles and techniques that made perfect sense and felt doable and repeatable. Later, after I had built a few dozen bows i came back to those books and really enjoyed reading all the different ideas and perspectives. Things that had felt confusing or overwhelming made way more sense after I had already built some bows and had some context. I could take what I needed from each section and confidently leave the rest. So my advice is to get a clean, solid piece of bow wood, get a simple, tried and true, straight limbed design and focus on the basics of design and tiller. If you can find someone to work with hands on, that's the best in my opinion. Short of that find a straight forward tutorial that covers all the important steps but doesn't get too complicated and work with that. People can answer your questions a lot better here if you can say this is my piece of wood, this is the plan I'm following and this is the problem I'm having. Good luck and have fun with it!

 you are lucky. You made a bow with John Strunk. That's cool. Thank you very much for your advice. It helps me a lot. And I was in the same situation, trying to understand every details.

Thank you so much Weylin    !!!

Denis