Best method for juniper

[CodyPost]

I have a lot of juniper here on my place and I have been kicking the idea around about building a sinew backed juniper bow. These trees range in diameter fron 3" to 12" how do I go about seasoning a stave from one of these trees. Is juniper like elm and I just pull the bark off and that is the back to my bow or do I need to go down into the heart wood and chase a ring. Any advice would be most appreciated.

[wizardgoat]

Juniper can be roughed out to bow dimensions while fairly wet with not much worry of checking. If I were you, I'd cut a few staves, remove bark, and rough them out. Wait a couple weeks, then rough them out to floor tiller. If you are sinew backing you can de crown them too. I love juniper one of my faves!

[JoJoDapyro]

Pay attention to how the bark grows. It will show you the twist of the wood. Straight bark, straight wood.

[CodyPost]

Thank you Gentlemen. I just went out and cut a log about 10" diameter and 6 ft long I am about to go back out and split it into quarters.

[CodyPost]

Well the log turned out to be crap so I will have to go find a better one. When I split it it had a bad twist in it that if I cut it off will put me at about 48" long and that is too short for what I want. So its back to the woods to find a better log.

[bowmo]

48" isn't a bad length for sinew backed bow. Most of the west coast bows were tiny little things. You can also fudge out some the twist by just removing more wood from offending sides of each tip, which would violate some rings and little but that doesn't matter in a sinew backed bow.

[CodyPost]

I will play with it some but I am also going to be looking for a better piece of wood. I have quite a bit of juniper around so finding another shouldnt be too tough.

[BrokenArrow]

Could you post a pic of what a you juniper tree looked like when cut?

[CodyPost]

Im at work right now but when I get home I will take a picture of the split log and post it

[CodyPost]

Split juniper log

[dylanholderman]

I've not worked with juniper before, but that twist doesn't look so bad.

[JohnL]

Hey guys,

     I read a post on here a while back that said that ERC (juniper) bows made from trunk wood "go boom", and that it was better to work a stave from limb wood.  Is that the case, and/or does that just apply to un-backed selfbows?  I've been wanting to try and make a selfbow from ERC, and there is an endless supply on my brother-in-law's property.  I keep looking at those big burn piles of cedar that he bulldozes over and wondering if there are some good bows hiding in the piles.

–John
 

[Badly Bent]

I'm curious to know what anyone with experience thinks of using trunk wood erc with a sinewed back. Is it worth the effort? I ask because I came across some some pretty straight and clean erc staves from a tree service a few months ago. Sapwood is pretty thick, about 3/4" and the staves backs are pretty flat coming from a 8"diameter trunk. I don't mean to hijack your post CodyPost but thought this may be a good place to ask this question and I have zero experience with this wood type. Hope you don't mind.

[Aaron H]

I have a piece of erc at floor tiller now that came from trunk wood, about a 10" diameter tree straight as can be with really thick sapwood ( about 2" ).  I shaved off most of the sapwood leaving about 3/16".  It had been decrowned and is ready for sinew. I plan to put 3 courses of sinew.  I know this doesn't answer your question Greg, but it should in about 3 months 

[Ryan C]

I have an endless supply of the stuff at my property and I have come to the conclusion after many failed bows that if you don't sinew back it will break. It may last a couple hundred shots but selfbows  are not meant to be made from this wood. Top half of a branch with sinew is the best you can do from ERC.