fig tree for staves????

[Shooter_G22]

ok my cousin just bought a house and in the midle of his back yard was a fig tree...   he cut the thing down and has all the tree limbs and i didnt look at them real good but they look to be all limbs that would probably make some descent staves...  is this wood something worth putting up...   i told him not to through them out and i would come over this week end and pick them up....   but my question is has anybody made bows from this type of limbs or staves???   is it good???

should i grab them

[knap_123]

dont no, but i bet they wouald be great fo na flutes!

[sailordad]

well you know what they say
" if it has fruit,nuts or thorns it will make a decent bow"

so i would say go gather them up,split,peel and seal them.

have fun and good luck

                                                                              peace,
                                                                                        tim

[islandpiper]

sailordad said:  " if it has fruit,nuts or thorns it will make a decent bow"

Same rule applies for politicians apparently. 

I expect a mod to pull this......sorry , my American Heritage is showing. 

piper

[armymedic.2]

if the fig trees you are talking about are the same ones we have over here, i would say no.  it looks very fibrous like bamboo, but peels apart easily with no protective rhine on the back.  could be wrong, but def not on the stuff over here.

[Pat B]

I wonder why he would cut a fig tree anyway. I wish I could grow one here but we get too cold.     Pat

[Shooter_G22]

well. i dont know if they are going to make a good bow but i told him to hang on to them and i would be by to pick them up...

i dont know why he chope the tree down...   i know it was like right in the middle of his yrd though and his yrd isnt real big but he has a couple of young baby kids 1 n 2yrs old boy and girl so i dont know if he is planing on putting some swings up or just have more room for them to play back there when they get a litle older or why he cut the tree down but he did sooo i was hopeing to bennifit fom his chop... 

i will try and get to them in a couple of days and see what they look like...   i will probably try them out...   i was hopeing somebody might come out and say yes i have used it or i have used it and no good...  or something to that effect...

i dont know if they would be the same stuff doc's talking about but i will know soon hopefully.. i'll try and post picks of what they look like doc... maybe it will give u btr idea... if same stuff...


i also have some trees around here that i have been eyeball'n that have some type of round berry i dont think the berrie is eatible..but i will probably take picks of it too ans post maybe a differant thread...

[mullet]

  If you ever grew up in the south with a Granny that had a Fig tree, you would cut it down too. And everybodies Granny had one. If you had cake,ice cream, toast anything that was supposed to be remotely good, it had fig sugar syrup, fig spread, or jam or some other fig concoction on it. Nothing worse than perfectly good , Vanilla ice cream with piles of figs and syrup dumped on it. And you had to eat it because Granny made it.

[sailordad]

  If you ever grew up in the south with a Granny that had a Fig tree, you would cut it down too. And everybodies Granny had one. If you had cake,ice cream, toast anything that was supposed to be remotely good, it had fig sugar syrup, fig spread, or jam or some other fig concoction on it. Nothing worse than perfectly good , Vanilla ice cream with piles of figs and syrup dumped on it. And you had to eat it because Granny made it.

 

[armymedic.2]

hey bro, now that im thinking bout it i think it is actually date trees here, not figs.  so it is possible you could just ignore my previous post.

[mullet]

  Dates grow on Palm Trees.

[Postman]

I wonder why he would cut a fig tree anyway. I wish I could grow one here but we get too cold.     Pat

hey Pat - they are real easy to grow in a 5 gal. bucket and bring in in the winter -Or they'll survive a few light frosts outside here in VA , then I push it over to the ground and cover it with hay and some rocks. You're almost in Atlanta, right? probably wouldn't even have to do that. Want me to root ya a cutting? Mine's from a tree my Grandpa brought over from Calabria in 1925.

Glad to hear it was a date tree - figs would be useless for bow wood - but I bet the sap could be used for something - almost like rubber tree sap

[Hillbilly]

Pat, figs will grow here-we've got a couple at the college. Put it on the South side of a building and it will probably do fine.

[Pat B]

I've tried growing a few with no success. Even one fig that was a cold hardy variety. We get way colder than Atlanta. Here in the mountains night time temps in the upper teens and low 20s is pretty common. Steve, If I could plant one next to the front of my house(south side) the house might protect it enough but no room there.
   When we were in coastal SC we had a big one in our yard and a community tree on the side of the road.    I never tried Ficus wood for bows although some of the tropical ficus' have pretty hard wood.    Pat

[Hillbilly]

Pat, the ones we have are in little protected nooks on the south sides of buildings, they won't survive out in the open. They bear pretty good most years. We spent a week this summer at a beach house on an island near Charleston, and there was a big fig tree in the backyard. We were sitting on the deck one night and kept hearing the limbs rustling around on it. I flipped on the outside lights, and there was a big coon sitting up in it stuffing himself with figs.