flowering dogwood

[Tom B]

ok brothers in bows.(sometimes knots). i'm considering a flowering dogwood cutting.how is cornus florida as a bow wood?sg is good.it can beat the crap out of stubborn rock .birds n tree rats love em.any info,experience? thanks in advance.tom

[DanaM]

No personal experience as it don't grow up here, but I've seen others make great bows with it. Go for it

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

i hear it works good, i have been looking for some myself, non has fallen in my lap yet- Ryan

[jamie]

excellent if ya can find a straight piece

[wvfknapper]

All the dogwood I have split spirals real bad, but if you can find a good piece I heard it make a sweet bow,, I know people who also use it for flintknapping.

wvflintknapper

[Hillbilly]

Tom, I've seen a couple nice dogwood bows. I haven't made one yet, but I've got a stave seasoning right now. Robert, I like dogwood and persimmon billets for whacking quartzite and rhyolite.

[wvfknapper]

Hillbilly

A friend from WV , Dave Crow uses wood billets and I seen a guy from NC or SC , cant remember his name but he was bare foot and had shorts on using wood billets working that green ryolite, the act of using wood billets seems so violent in comparison to antler or copper ,, I was just waiting on the guy to break his hand,, but it works.

wvflintknapper

[Hillbilly]

That would have been wildman James Parker, awesome knapper. What little bit I know I mostly learned from him. The wood works on that tough stuff better than anything else. The green rhyolite works good with antler, too. Tom B's son Patrick can sure whack some nice points out of that rhyolite.

[Pat B]

Tom, I cut a dogwood a few months back. The stave Hillbilly has came from the same tree. I have heard it makes good bows but I haven't worked it yet. The butt log(5") I split has a few degrees of twist in 7'. That should be no problem.     Pat

[Pappy]

I have made a couple a few years back that turned out OK,didn't know much about bow building
then and they still done alright.We have some seasoning now and a couple roughed out.It
should turn out a good bow,I see no reason why it wouldn't.It is really pretty wood when
finished.       
   Pappy

[Hillbilly]

Pat, I got it split,  debarked, and sealed. It looks like at least one bow, maybe two. I'm looking forward to working with it.

[ozark caveman]

ok brothers in bows.(sometimes knots). i'm considering a flowering dogwood cutting.how is cornus florida as a bow wood?sg is good.it can beat the crap out of stubborn rock .birds n tree rats love em.any info,experience? thanks in advance.tom

Tom! It's excellent wood. Click this link and you'll see two dogwood bows that I made.

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,5248.0.html

[Tom B]

thanks for the feedback and link. i did do a search first and saw zip.none are so blind...thanks guys.tom

[artcher1]

Dogwood make a pretty good bow Tom. My most shot bow ever is dogwood. Course I don't shoot that much you know !  Anyways, after I plum wore it out I sinewed the thing and it's now perhaps my fastest bow.

[wvfknapper]

Hillbilly

That was James,, he sure can swing a wood billet..........I like working the Green rock also, does it come from your area? Hard to get decent size pieces...........I have made some killer Clovis points from it.

wvflintknapper