Tell me more about plum, please?

[Springbuck]

    I keep hearing such praise for plum's elasticity and capabilities, and I believe it, but haven't really experienced it.  But, guys I really respect and want to be like when I grow up (not looking good so far, at 44 years old) like Marc St Louis, are giving it the highest praise possible.   

 I have made a small number of plum bows, and like it just fine, but I have been limited to using scrubby saplings COVERED with bumpy knots, or large shoots from trees. Anything approaching 3" diameter gave me fits checking as it dried, and warping like mad.   Almost ALL the stuff I've cut did have trouble drying without BIG checks, even huge gapping splits, even when I left the bark on, sealed everything and left them out of the heat. And it's prone to those tiny borers I was having trouble with last fall and this spring.

 So, when dealing with small wood (like elm, ash, and mulberry saplings) my normal strategy of splitting or reducing and restraining the stave to dry doesn't seem to be an option.  Even being forwarned about how hard it is to cure plum without damage, it hasn't worked well, and I know what I'm doing with other woods.  Do I HAVE to cut it in winter?  Do you guys reduce and seal?  How do you manage it?

  But, the biggest problem I have encountered is that it grows as twisted as any wood I've used except our local hawthorns.  The grain twists as badly as serviceberry or apple, so I don't really trust a larger stave to split out right, OR to hold if I saw it out.  (With twisty woods I have had decent luck with sapling bows that have pretty high, intact crowns).

  So, is this the same for everybody?  Are some species less prone to twist than others (I have cut wild American native plum, and long shoot branches from purple leaf and other similar ornamental domestics).  What varieties do you guys prefer?  Is there much difference?  Where are you guys getting plum wood big enough to slab out and back with maple or whatever?  In a laminated bow, how does the twist affect the belly wood?  I almost can't imaging a slat cut out without any knots, anyway. 

I have had VERY bad luck backing some twisted osage I had, even though it looked cleanly quarter sawn, and some massaranduba that twisted one way, then back.  Both blew through in what I would describe as a slip fracture, front to back at under or about 10 degrees of grain deviation.

I think I have just gained some new access to some plum, and I want to do a better job this time.

[sumpitan]

I've made some plum bows, and a whole lot more out of other dense-wood, small-dimension species with nasty shrinkage numbers. My procedure for the worst-checking woods (plum included) is to cut the wood only during the cold season (this seems to really make a difference), keep the bark on but saw the wood immediately into staves and work them down to near-finished thickness but leave them full width. Then, the first several weeks of drying in a cool, moist place before moving them into warmer, drier locales. The transition period of free water vs. bound water leaving the wood is critical. This is where those gaping cracks appear. With plum, it really takes all of the above, in my experience. For instance, leaving the staves thick will result in deep checking, no matter what. Cutting wood before winter sets in, same thing. Everything done right, I get plum bows with maybe a tiny crack in the thickest handle area, if that.

All of the plum in my area is domestic, mostly runaway trees on abandonded lots etc. I haven't had much any problems with twisting when it comes to plum. Lilac (my all-time favorite) and saskatoon / serviceberry (a runner-up) are way worse in this regard. I cut only saplings of these three woods, often shoots that grow off a gnarly, twisted mother trunk inside a dense thicket (less twist in the saplings). Since a 1.5 - 2" diam. sapling of these woods makes a 60 - 70#, low-set selfbow, there's little need to look for bigger stuff. 

Tuukka

[Marc St Louis]

I don't find the Plum I cut to have a problem with twisting.  I also cut wood, seems to be a species of Black Plum, that has spread from something that was planted near an old Church.  Most of what I have found are small trees where all I can get is billet length wood and after cutting I seal the ends and leave whole for a few days then kerf and split.  Could be that where you live has an impact on how the wood dries as I don't have any issues with checking.  Whole logs will start to develop cracks after several days though but the first time that happened it was manageable and I just split the wood along the cracks.

Plum is great bow wood but so is Osage and Yew

[Badger]

  aside from the checking problems plum is one of my favorite woods also. We don't have a true winter here but I have been cutting whenever an opportunity presented itself. 2" is about the largest I ever get and 1 1/2" is about the smallest i want. I usually saw mine in half right away and rough out the limbs then wrap in sirhan wrap for a month or so with some holes punched in it for moisture to escape. I nearly always get a check in the handle area.

[DC]

I'm wondering if cutting in your most humid season would be better than always cutting in the winter. Winter has the driest air in a lot of places.

[DavidV]

I've pretty much done the same as Badger. Cut it to near bow dimensions, cling wrap it for a week, poke holes in the plastic and let it dry another week or two. Mine has never warped really, but american plum saplings tend to grow straight up in thickets. It is VERY stiff wood once dried, weight wise it probably has a higher elastic modulus than osage.

[sumpitan]

I've personally never cut bowwood in the dead of winter (it can get - 20 F here in Jan-Feb), but simply some time after the growing season is over and the leaves have fallen. If the most humid season coincides with the growing season, it is a lousy time to cut fussy bow wood. My consistent experience has been that wood cut then checks and warps more. Also, the unfinished outer ring in such wood can wreak havoc on bows, too.  In the late fall, when the trees are ready, outdoors RH is around 80 - 90 % here. Even in mid-winter, it is the air indoors that gets really dry, when cold outdoors air is heated into warm indoor air. In cold storage, RH remains usably high (around 70 - 80 % here), and evaporation is nice and slow, due to the low temps.

Tuukka

[Springbuck]

I'm wondering if cutting in your most humid season would be better than always cutting in the winter. Winter has the driest air in a lot of places.

I live in Utah, so the humid season is right after the pigs soar majestically overhead.

[Springbuck]

I don't find the Plum I cut to have a problem with twisting.  I also cut wood, seems to be a species of Black Plum, that has spread from something that was planted near an old Church.  Most of what I have found are small trees where all I can get is billet length wood and after cutting I seal the ends and leave whole for a few days then kerf and split.  Could be that where you live has an impact on how the wood dries as I don't have any issues with checking.  Whole logs will start to develop cracks after several days though but the first time that happened it was manageable and I just split the wood along the cracks.

Plum is great bow wood, but so is osage and yew.

I have access to neither osage or yew, and black locust is a rare treat.  I end up using a lot of different white woods and making it up as I go along, almost never making the same bow twice in a row, constantly adjusting for stave idiosyncracies and wood type..  I FINALLY found a thicket of hard, white elm, but I'm usually working with a hodgepodge of elm, ash, chokecherry, plum, mulberry, scrub oak, scrub maple, dogwood, yellow and black locusts, serviceberry, cherry, walnut, etc.....and some ERC and juniper, on occasion.  I have plenty of wood, just random access, and lots of different types.

Most of what plum I can get is, as most others have mentioned, long second growth shoots from inside old gnarly trees, or saplings from thickets.  However, I have yet to cut anything that did not spiral, even from old domestic ornamental purple leaf plums or similar.  At least a 90 degree turn over 3 or 4 feet, sometimes a lot more.  So it must be something with the climate or in the water.  ;-P  That coupled with the snarly, kinky nature of plum and the smaller size of trees has kept me from learning as much as I want about it.

[Bryce]

For me personally I would take a stick of purple leaf plum over a stick of Osage, everyday of the week.

[joachimM]

in my area (Belgium, weather like UK, humidity in winter close to 85%, in summer 70%), small diameter plum branch ELB-style bows (<1") are easy to make and are a dream to shoot. Anything larger tends to warp and split like crazy, and is pretty recalcitrant to steam-bending.

I have two staves of 2" diameter that I sealed with bark on, and are allowing to season slowly. I'll see what I get out of them somewhere next year.

Joachim

[Limbit]

You know, I ordered plum wood from a Russian instrument making workshop in Siberia a few years back. They did an excellent job cutting the wood when I gave them instructions for what I was looking for and I got a box full of nice-looking, well-seasoned plum billets that were a breeze to splice and weren't really expensive at all. The only expensive part was the shipping :-#. Got apple and olive wood off them too. Worth a go if you got the money, plum is special stuff.

[hochgaertner]

Do you use the heartwood or the sapwood?
I built one which is made nearly only from the sapwood, because I didn't  find rings to
go down (o.k.??)
The stave had a natural deflex which I tried to correct with dry heat - no success
Drying was no problem, when  I worked the fresh wood (with bark) down. 
The other pieces (with the bark on) got deep cracks.
The tree has been felt in the spring.

Peter