So I recently harvested a dew staves and have been working to get them roughed out before I leave for a trip to Ecuador. hopefully by the time I get back in march they'll be ready to go. Unfortunately, due to some overzealousness on my part, I didn't cut the cleanest staves, and 2 split spirally. Being a novice, I'm not quite sure what to do at this point, so I'd like to see what your opinions on these three are:
From top to bottom: Serviceberry with moderate limb twist, ocean spray with a side limb (the pictures below have some details on that) and vine maple with fairly severe limb twist.
Heres the limb that used to be attached. I cut this one out of a thicket so I didn't even see it until after I'd cut the bottom.
Side note, this limb split cleanly up from the main split on the ocean spray without me even coming close to it with the wedge, OS is crazy stuff .
Close-up of the grain, seems to run fairly strait once you get towards the center.
All three of these staves are ideally going to become short-ish bendy handle bows, if I can get them laid out correctly. Is it possible to fix the limb twist of the serviceberry and VM by steaming and/or clamping? Ignore it? Also, how safe do you think that OS stave will be? I'm planning on keeping lots of wood in that spot, but should I back it as well, or just scrap it? Thanks for your ideas, I'd love to have some bows instead of some firewood!
