Standing dead Revisted (Juniper)

[Keenan]

Rich, Thank you  that sounds great and I am always fascinated with the history of bows from various tribes. Especially with woods that I have available. Please post what you can.

[half eye]

Keenan,
      Here are the words and sourcs references:
North American Bows, Arrows, And Quivers, Smithsoian Report of 1893, Otis Tufton Mason; page9 para: 9 through 11.......
    " Coville says that the Panamint Indians of Death's Valley, California,make their bows from the desert juniper (Juniperus californica utahen ). The Indian prefers a piece of wood from the trunk or a large limb of a tree that has died and seasoned while standing. In these desert mountains moist rot of dead wood never occurs. The bow rarely exceeds three feet in length and is strengthened by gluingto the back a covering composed of strips of deer sinew laid on lengthwise.The string is of twisted hemp.++
     These Panimint belong to the Shoshonean stock, spread out over the Great Interior Basin, and all the tribes use the sinew lined bow, with transverse wrappings of shredded sinew. (Plate LXI, fig.4.) *
     The bow of the Chemehuevis (Shoshonean) is characteristic of the stock to which they belong, being of hard wood common in the region, elegently backed with sinew and bound with shredded sinew, ornamented also at the end by the skin or rattle of the rattlesnake.** The type belongs to the stock everywhere.
     ++] Am. Anthrop., Washington, 1892, vol. v,p. 360
     *  ] This illustration, bow #4, shows a thin bow with highly crowned back, and flattened belly
     **] Whipple, etc., Pac.r.r. Rep., vol. III, p 32, pl.41, bow and quiver.

Furthermore page 10 of Otis Mason's Report, para.3  "........The Athapascan sinew veneered bow is found strictly West of the Rockies, the slender variety in the Basin and British Columbia, the flat variety on the Pacific Slope. The Navajo also have adopted this type of sinew-lined bow."

The bow that Otis Mason drew is analagos to an English long bow in section but only backwards crowned back and flat belly. Hope that helps you some.
rich

[vinemaplebows]

Here are the pics of the yew bow I was talking about....upper limb has a very cool looking streak down it, and bottom limb had a rotten knot I removed.

[Keenan]

Awesome Rich, I have several books on North American bows and they are giving very similar acounts.

Nice looking bow Vinemaple, Thanks for sharing

[half eye]

Keenan,
      I have pretty decent museum pics of 6 or 7 of these bows afrom different tribes, including the navajo.....most are the shoshonean tribes including the southern Paiute. The site still will not allow the pics but if you send me your email address I will send them to you via email......if you want them that is.
rich

[dragonman]

I just found this thread and thought it very interesting , partly because  I have a really nice piece of straight knot free hawthorn that I cut dead standing and havent used because I have been advised against it , but to me the wood looks perfectly good, so I will try it on the strength of this thread.
I have noticed here in the woods that under some conditions dead standing oak gets extremely hard, much harder than any oak that is cut green and seasoned, I have been thinking of trying this too. My bowsaw and axe are quickly blunted when cutting firewood but if you try to break it it is still flexible as well!!!!

[Sempertiger]

I'm curious, the general consensus is that wood from standing dead trees in dry environments is the target. My only counter to this argument is a tree that I'm currently targeting. the Alaska Yellow Cedar, which is actually a cypress, not a true cedar.

The sate of Alaska did a study testing the mechanical properties of this tree in several different groups ranging from live cut trees to trees that have been dead standing for better than 80 years. The conclusion of the study is that no significant changes in mechanical properties were noted. and according to the study, trees that have been dead from 20-50 years were stronger than anything else. the clincher is that the average, monthly, RH in this part of alaska is 80% and the area that these trees were cut is part of the coastal temporate rain forest with an average yearly rainfall of near 100".

My thoughts are that the rot resistance of the target wood is a more significant factor than the moisture of the sourounding environment.

This is how I think this works. It's not fact, just my conjectures. As the sapwood ages, it turns into heartwood, but since everything inside the cambium layer is dead already, this process is independent from the trees life cycle. which means that the soft sapwood converts to heartwood, even after the tree dies. The issue and cure is that a tree's live cambium layer must protect the dead interior wood from bacterial and fungal infections, since trees typically don't rot while they are still alive. I think we can exploit this process by targeting trees that are naturally rot resistant, like my precious AYC, resulting in a source of wood that is almost entirely heartwood.

just my .02

JS

[Keenan]

 JS. I like your .02 and agree that the type of wood is of major importance.   And as well as being rot resistant the insect vulnerability is a factor to consider.  On the dead standing Juniper that I just cut, I found one bug trail  right on the edge of the good part of the stave. Thankfully it didn't get to the good side with no knots.

Dragon, Give it a shot and post your results

[rossfactor]

Ok lets geek out!! 

A really interesting paper was published on the subject of standing dead Alaskan Yellow Cedar (I don't know of this is the same study you referred to JS).  In short the authors found (among other interesting things) that heartwood from Alaskan Yellow Cedar that is living or standing dead for less than 80 years, and is wetted intermittently is moderately resistant to decay from a common fungus. They also found that tree size had a lot to do with it, with the smaller trees actually being more resistant to decay than larger ones.

heres a link to it for other geeks like me (its actually a pretty easy read for a scientific paper).

JS
I agree that decay resistance plays a big role, maybe more than RH.  I don't think that dead sapwood becomes heartwood though, because there are chemicals called extractives(?) that are necessary to convert sapwood into heartwood, and I think the tree has to be alive to produce those chemicals.

ol' mother nature has a bottomless bag of tricks.

Gabe

[Sempertiger]

I was talking about the study I referenced in this thread.

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,31589.msg418151.html#msg418151

 I'm a little dizzy for some reason tonight, and the idea of reading much more is making my head spin. Tough day at work, was beating my head against an issue all day and have tomorrow to do the same.

That does sound familar though.

JS

[Josh B]

Very interesting topic.  I don't know if this applies , but black walnut will leech out the extractives of the heartwood in to the sapwood with enough time, heat and moisture.  I have staves that I stored inside where it stays fairly cool that have the nearly white sapwood, but the ones stored under the lean to have all darkened the sapwood to the point of making it hard to see the transition .  When lumber outfits buy walnut logs, they use steam to speed up this sapwood transformation so that there is very little waist when the log is milled into lumber. I would also tend to believe rot resistance and climate both play significant rolls in the speed of fungal decomposition.  When we cut walnut for gun stocks, we leave it lay in the weather for  3 to 5 years to darken the sapwood and the wood remains sound. I believe this can be attributed to the drier climate of central KS as well as the rot resistance of walnut. However, if walnut is left on the ground farther east it rots rather quickly.  Conversely, in Western KS I know of some cottonwood logs that have been laying for 4 years now with little sign of decay.  Where I live they would rot in 6 months. Don't know if this rambling contributed anything useful, just sharing what little I have experienced.  Josh

[Keenan]

That is some interesting input Josh. Thanks for sharing

[crooketarrow]

  My only exsperance is with OSAGE. It came from my old friend and bowyer CROOKETARROW. He was 1/2 IROQOUIS and told me that only OSAGE in this area(WV) WOULD MAKE A BOW form a dead standing tree. All others were to reseptable to rot and fungus's.
  He's never conceder killing a big tree but I have seen him KILL SAPLEING and leave them stand for at least 2 so as long a 5 before he made a bow from them. I even seen him tie the over to have reflex in them after the sapleing dies. It seamed he always had OSAGE tree's in some stage of dieing and seasoning.
  He said he was taught to do it that way. I can't say how many bows he made this way. But I built a few like this long ago. I know the dead sap wood comes off easyer alowing you to see and use the first ring a lot easyer. As far as better I could'nt tell. He just said I'm to lazy to cut and store. To much exture work than just going geting it when your ready to build your bow.
  He never store stave of any kind. He's cut and season long enough to make a bow. He thoght I wasa crazy to have rooms full of cut staves.
  I have made 2 bows from a HICKORY that was struck by lighting. I don't know how long it was standingv before I cut it. I cut out and strayed the staves down. I kept the staves almost 2 years before I made a bow of one and traded the other. I wasn't anything special but made a bow.

[Onebowonder]

The best piece of Hickory I've ever worked came from a thick broken limb that stayed in the top of the tree it busted out of during a heavy Ozark ice storm.  It had been folded over and snapped most the way through by the storm.  It lay in the top of the tree for two years before I cut it down from its perch.  People talk of the metal tink sound that Osage often makes when tapped with a tool; well, this old piece of Hickory made that sound too.  Additionally it was very light weight compared the other two hickory staves I made from the same tree.

I'm not sure how this might apply to the total discussion, but hey, it's another data point.

[JackCrafty]

The dead standing juniper here in Texas is not good for bows, IMO.  The dead standing wood actually becomes too dry and is not very flexible, especially the heartwood.  I've tried many times to make bows from the dead standing wood and each time the bows break unexpectedly.  The results are always unpredictable with dead standing ashe juniper, in my experience.

Ashe juniper is more flexible after it is seasoned after being cut from a live tree.  I think this has something to do with the quality or the amount of rosin in the wood, I don't know for sure.  The rosin seems to be of higher quality in wood that is seasoned.  One obvious way to tell is the smell of the wood.  Dead standing juniper doesn't smell as good as seasoned juniper.

Branches and trunks work  equally well as long as there is minimal heartwood.  The heartwood is great in compression as long as the wood is wet.  When dry, the heartwood is brittle.  When very dry (less that 12% moisture) the sapwood becomes brittle too but not as badly as the heartwood.