Bow wood design

[Young Bowyer]

I was reading the TBB (my bedtime story  ) and I came across a part where it said you could use any wood to make a bow, however you will have to change the design to either make the bow longer or wider ect. How does this make bows of true bow wood and common wood have the same cast?
I'm just wondering because people ask me about design and technique and such and I dont have an explanation. 
Thanks, YB

[Weylin]

Just because you can make a bow out of Pine that will shoot ok doesn't mean that you can make a 60# bow from pine that will have the same cast as a 60# bow from osage. I think what the book is trying to say is that you can make a shootable bow out of virtually any wood but for some woods you have to make fairly extreme concessions like overbuilding them and making them very long and wide. This will inevitably mean that the bow will have more energy lost in all that mass which will in turn take away from the preformance. That is the inherent advantage of denser woods that are high in tension, compression and elasticity; they need less wood to do the same work therefore putting more energy into the arrow. I hope that makes sense and answers your question.

[Pat B]

You should design your bow to get the best out of the charactoristics of the wood, ie. compression strengths and weaknesses as well as tension strengths and weaknesses.  For example take osage and mulberry. They are closely related but osage is quite a bit stronger, but also heavier(physically) than mulberry. You can make a mulberry bow that shoots as goos and as hard as an osage bow if you add about 10% to all portions of the mulberry's dimensions. By making it 10% bigger you compensate for the strengths and weaknesses plus mulberry is physically lighter so you can get faster limb recovery because ithe limbs are physically lighter in weight.

[johnston]

Let me try to illustrate a bit. I am a hunter/shooter much more than a bow builder but can't afford to buy all the bows I want so I started building them.

One of my favorite bought bows is boo backed hickory. Really like this bow so  I copied it to build another just like it. But, since my building skills are not that great I used wood that was easily replaced, in this case a red oak board.
Now starting with Mr. Comstock and going through the TBB's we are taught that all wood can be used for bows if we make it long and wide enough.You can get as deep into that as you want but for me here in the deep south, I use hickory as a standard and build accordingly.

Red oak is a little down the scale from hickory so for my copy bow I went about 3/16" wider to start and roughed-out about an 1/8 thicker.I kept the length the same cause it was part of the appeal of the bought bow but you can see that leaving it longer would have given me more to work with and increased my chances of the bow working out.

Since oak equals less than hickory I had to use more of it. After you have a piece of wood shaped wide enough and long enough the tillering process can begin. Burn this into your brain... WOOD TYPE DON'T MATTER, TILLER MATTERS. Sure some wood will tolerate off-tiller better than others but the goal is to not BE off tiller. Anybody can cut out a stick and put a string on it but that ain't a bow less it is tillered

Osage and yew are not easy for me to get so I don't bother with them. I use what I do have and build accordingly. Over and over til I get it right. You can do that too with what you have.As to specific designs this forum will show you the patterns and you take note of the wood used and adjust for your particular wood. And ask questions. But... you can only learn so much by reading, you have to do it to understand.Good luck.

Lane

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Just because you can make a bow out of Pine that will shoot ok doesn't mean that you can make a 60# bow from pine that will have the same cast as a 60# bow from osage. I think what the book is trying to say is that you can make a shootable bow out of virtually any wood but for some woods you have to make fairly extreme concessions like overbuilding them and making them very long and wide. This will inevitably mean that the bow will have more energy lost in all that mass which will in turn take away from the preformance. That is the inherent advantage of denser woods that are high in tension, compression and elasticity; they need less wood to do the same work therefore putting more energy into the arrow. I hope that makes sense and answers your question.

Agreed, well said Weylin.

[Pat B]

Good advise, Lane!

[sailordad]

only way to find out is to give it a try

i have seen folks on here recently whom have made bows from birch and the like
with heavy draw weights and not alot of set and good results,and this is supposed to be on of them "non bow woods"

so cut it and make shavings and let us know how it goes
design is critical for best performance from any wood

[blackhawk]

Something missing from the formula pertaining to cast that hasn't been touched upon here is the actual properties of a certain wood type such as its elasticity,tension,and compression properties. A properly designed pine bow compared to a properly designed top 5 true bow wood bow will not have the same cast due to the properties within the wood. Obviously a whole long book or chapter could be written on all the bow woods and the characteristic and properties..oh....wait...already done in TBB1 and TBB4 is a good starting place to learn those qualities and design and build around them.

[Young Bowyer]

Thanks guys, youve given e some insight on this, very interesting subject, I think.

Thanks again, YB 

[Weylin]

One more consideration, and agruably the most important is what you want to get out of a bow. If your goal is to kill a deer and you make a properly designed birch bow that kills a deer for you than it is just as good as the best Italian yew bow or the best high-tech compound bow. The preformance of the bow might dictate how close you need to be to the deer but dead is dead, it doesn't matter how fancy your bow is.

[Young Bowyer]

One more consideration, and agruably the most important is what you want to get out of a bow. If your goal is to kill a deer and you make a properly designed birch bow that kills a deer for you than it is just as good as the best Italian yew bow or the best high-tech compound bow. The preformance of the bow might dictate how close you need to be to the deer but dead is dead, it doesn't matter how fancy your bow is.

I agree, I would want to hunt with a 6 foot long warbow  , even though it has the power to, it just isn't convenient, Thanks Weylin
 
YB

[Badger]

  Their are obviously somewoods that just don't work very well for making bows. But historicaly local tribes and villages have had to use what grew in the area they lived, trial and error probably gave them the best they had available. Woods like pine and doug fir can make serviceable hunting weapons but as said above are ususally larger than what a hunter might want to fool with. From a performance standpoint if properly designed around the wood their won't be a huge difference between woods. Some of the worst bow woods are actually amoung the best performers but are not reliable. Silver maple, cherry, red elm, honey locust, cedar, white mulberry, poplar, and a bunch of others I can't think of are all very good performers but don't usually last very long.

[crooketarrow]

     I do like the way Weylin puts it. But  with what everyone said there's nothing really to ad. All good advice.