Tillering for low set

[DC]

Douglas Maple is much like Vine maple apparently. Finding a vertical one is rare. I always mark the high side and if it's big enough to split I mark the bottom piece as compression wood. So far I haven't worked any compression wood but it's waiting in the wings.  It wasn't strapped to anything(at least in recent memory) and wasn't terribly reflexed so maybe this was more vertical than most. You ask hard questions. Trying to remember if a tree I cut two years ago was leaning, those brain cells are long dead.

[willie]

ok, at least we can assume that it was harvested and split with the tension side as the back.

and another question if I may,

is the belly of the bow made from what was once on the compression side of the tree, ie small diameter sapling with pith still in bow?,
Or is the whole bow made from what was once the upper side of the tree?

[DC]

It's all the upper side. The sapling was about 3" dia I would guess. The other side might be kicking around somewhere but I'll never know.

[willie]

sometimes I wonder if the reflex that is seen when a bow gets thinned, is a result of the most recently grown sapwood acting different from the older wood. I don't know if the older wood towards the belly could be considered heartwood or not, but it might be "seasoned"  different from the ring  just under the bark. If the whole bow is made from what was always on the upper side of the tree, then it would it not all be tension wood?

I use the term "seasoned" very loosely here, as I do not know a better word, although I guess it is possible that interior wood might season somehow, even if the tree has not yet been cut down. I am told it is dead, but still wet, and on it's way to becoming heartwood.

what ever the state of the belly, the new sapwood seems to be contracting. Perhaps it is just a difference in the way
the newest wood dries?

[DC]

In my limited experience the outer wood shrinks more. I think that the closer you go to the center the less water the wood holds. If it was the other way wood would check from the middle out.

[Selfbowman]

Been watching this . Still thinking. Arvin

[Bob Barnes]

  If you are using a well established bow wood and have a good idea of the dimensions it needs to make a bow your battle is 1/2 over. You also have to be sure it is dry enough. I don't pay too much attention to monitoring the wood unless I am building a design or weight I am less familiar with and am not certain of dimensions I should be using.

-is there a chart somewhere listing 'best' dimensions by species?

-DC it sounds like you have your question answered and then some... but I always write "NO" in the spot that I need to leave alone...

[willie]

there is a chart in TBB 1  listing some species and widths for a 66" bow.  specific gravities are also shown. Specific gravities can be used to judge most whitewoods, and differing  dimensions can be adjusted for.