Chinese elm

[servicebeary]

Anyone try Chinese elm before? and does the terrible smell of feces appear after cut like the weeping from a live tree?
        thanks, nick

[Little John]

I tried it once and broke the bow when tillered out to about 20 inches, it was my first bow but don't think it was from any thing I did wrong.   I think I heard it was very brittle wood. Too bad as it seems to grow every where.     Kenneth

[Rich Saffold]

Funny where I live they make as fast a self bow as there is, and I have made about 40 of them 20 from one tree...

[El Destructo]

       I have made two Bows from it and they both turned out great....really zippy wood........if you can stand to split it!!!

[servicebeary]

sweet! thanks all, I'll have to give it a shot.  I have access to a lot of it.  Did you all just rip the bark off, seal it and use that as the back on good pieces?
         many thanks, nick

[Little John]

Good to know others have had sucess, will have to give another try.   Kenneth

[El Destructo]

I did....I left all of the Sapwood on them.... one has only a Heartwood Handle....the other has a little Heartwood on the Limbs...all depends on how thick the Sapwood is on how the Bow will look....I really prefer that they have some of the Colorful Heartwood on them....but I am not chasing rings on Elm!!!

[Hillbilly]

I think in some parts of the country Siberian Elm is called Chinese Elm. Most true Chinese elm is somewhat similar to our native elms, but the Siberian elm is a lot lighter, weaker and more brittle.

[Little John]

Well now I am confused.    Kenneth

[servicebeary]

many thanks, I'll have to get a definate ID on the one's we have growing all over idaho.  Have you all witnessed the horrendous smell that it's watery sap has when it's injured?  I used to have goats and they love it more than anything on earth, but when I got the sap on my hands it was just as good as rubbing fresh dog poop all over my hands!  I love that tree
                                          nick

[Rich Saffold]

The Chinese Elms I have used are all sapwood, yellow/gold in color which darkens a bit in the sun to a light brown. There is no smell, and they are very tough interlocking grain. I used the chainsaw to split them..Higher density than any other elms in our area.

[srt]

many thanks, I'll have to get a definate ID on the one's we have growing all over idaho.  Have you all witnessed the horrendous smell that it's watery sap has when it's injured?  I used to have goats and they love it more than anything on earth, but when I got the sap on my hands it was just as good as rubbing fresh dog poop all over my hands!  I love that tree
                                          nick

nick, i am up in boise

i have a tree growing right up against my fence that i was told by my father-in-law was chinese elm. i need to remove it before it tears up my fence...to try to be sure i wont be throwing away potential bow wood i googled 'tree identification' and used about 3 different online resources to try to identify this tree, in all cases i identified it as siberian elm, not chinese elm, except the leaves are the wrong size. at this moment i do not recall if the leaves on my tree are bigger or smaller than the sites said siberian elm trees have...also, one of the sites stated there is no such thing as 'chinese elm' and that many different species use 'chinese elm' as their common name. i am still not 100% certain what i have.

steve

[Hillbilly]

Yeah, there's a Chinese Elm-It's Ulmus parvifolia, also known as lacebark elm. It is commonly planted as an ornamental landscape tree. I would guess that most of your Idaho elm is Siberian. The horrible smelling sap is caused by a bacterial infection (slime flux/wetwood).

[Josh Shuck]

I had a Siberian elm at my old house that I cut down.  The wood seemed very brittle and every breath of wind would litter my yard with broken branches.  I started to save a stave or two for a trial bow but decided that it just didn't seem to have any weight or hardness to it at all.  It seemed porous and spongy.  The wood looked like it might have been pretty though with the dark hardwood, rich grain and light sapwood.

It's to my understanding that the Siberian elm was the cure all for the American elm die off from the Dutch elm disease.  Many people soon found though with all of the dangerous, failure prone branches that they didn't live up to the American variety.

[servicebeary]

dang, so no easy bows ohh well at least we've got tons of black locust ehh Steve?  You tried any BL or service or chokecherry from Idaho?
     thanks for the info fellas, I won't be chasing my tail now  
            -nick