Maple Board Bow

[Thesquirrelslinger]

So i had a maple 1x2 laying around for almost a year, and thought, why not make a bow from maple?
It is a diffuse-porus wood, so not as many splinter issues on the back- It is edge-ringed, with fairly parallel grain. I am going for a 35-40#.
65 inches long. smoothed off, burnished, sanded edges off the back today. I am currently tillering/flattening it.
Any advice? Is maple particularily weak in compression or tension?
in the TBB it only says that someone made a flatbow from maple.
My ash wood is now split:)
It has a 70 inch or so straight area, hoping to get 2-4 staves out of that. big-whopping knot on one side... No problems while splittin, so I will probably make 1/2 into bowstaves, 1/2 into arrows.
once I get it tillered to 12 inches or so I will post pics... It might break.
-Squirrel

[bubby]

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,35312.0.html  maple is good in tension and likes a flat belly and makes a smooth drawing fast bow

[DarkSoul]

Maple is a good all round bowwood. It likes a flat belly, but otherwise you can make pretty much any design with a desired draw weight of 40 pounds. Leave it full width, tapering to 1/2" nocks and narrow the handle slightly, would be the easiest way to go.
The only thing with maple, is that the grain can be hard to read. You have to make sure the rings run all the way down, nice and parallel, on all four sides of the board. In my experience, it's easier to find a straight grained board of oak or ash, so I hope your board is well selected. If the grain is good, it won't need a backing.

[bow101]

I had one Maple board break, but then again it was pulling to much 65# @28;;;;;;;;;;;   I pulled to far she snapped, and where it snapped was quite evident you could see the grain run-off just where the bend happens at the last third from the tips.