Sourcing wood

[Ippus]

I am having just a heck of a time trying to get hold of a decent piece of wood for my first bow. Read through tbb I-IV a couple of times and everything else I can get my hands on, stalking the forums.., but it doesn't do me much good if I've naught t'work wit.

I tried talking to a local tree service guy for a while, but that didn't pan out, because he never seemed to be cuttig anything I could use when I could get to him (the most commone local tree are Siberian elm and Russian Olive, both too twisty or brittle to be much good). Box elder is native, and Norway maple is pretty common as a landscape tree, but he never seemed to be working on those.

I have a friend who I just found out is into woodworking, and he just gave me a couple 1x2 alder boards, but there are knots and some splitting (and some run-off grain) so I think I'm not going to get too far. He had some birch, too but it was the same story - wavy grain... Would've made a great coffee table, but probably not so much a bow.

The local Home Depot/Lowe's doesn't even carry hardwood lumber, and the nearest place that does is like an hour away...

Argh!

Any thoughts suggestions?

[PatM]

Buy a piece from a stave dealer with a good reputation.

[jaxenro]

See if home depot can have some sent to their store - they usually carry oak or at least they used to

[Ippus]

I've found white oak acorns and bigtooth maple samaras... I'm on the point of growing my own, I'm just not keen on waiting 3-5 years to get any usuable wood.

That's a good though. I may see if I can get the local HD to order some oak or something.

Any thoughts on how one locates a reputable stave dealer? I'm in SE Idaho, so I kind of doubt there are any around here... And I can't afford to pay a lot.

[Ippus]

Loon, are you suggesting I just use pine for the belly and back it with bamboo?

[willie]

if you order from home depo or lowes, you will not get get to pick thru it much

i built a laminated bow last winter with a belly piece that was cut from a 2 x 4 from home depot.
it was larch from idaho btw. It took some looking through the stud pile to find a clear straight fine grained piece.maybe your woodworking friend can make a few rips with a tablesaw for you

the back is a different matter.

[GB]

I'd check out that lumberyard, especially if they have a website that lists what they have in stock.  Or give them a call.  I found one an hours drive from me that stocks hickory, hard maple, and Eastern Red Cedar at good prices.  Like around $5 per bow.  Bubby has a nice build along archived using a maple board, but you could use hickory as well.  Especially if you're in a dry climate.

Just my opinion, but I wouldn't back any type of pine with bamboo.  Pretty sure bamboo would be way too tension strong.

[Ippus]

Really, like $5 a pop? That's a whole lot less than what I was thinking. That'd make it worth the drive for sure...

[Joec123able]

If you live in Idaho, You should have many good woods around you outside of the ones you named.

[Ippus]

There's not a lot of hardwood in the southeast, mostly juniper and sagebrush.

The nice forest is all up North. There's actually Pacific Yew native to some parts of the state, just nowhere near here.

 There's box elder all over near the river, and a little bit of bigtooth maple up in the hills, though... not much else.

[wizardgoat]

Juniper is good bow wood. Serviceberry? Gotta be some black locust around you too

[Jim Davis]

Best shot may be to use juniper and back it with sinew, as did the early inhabitants of your area. I just drove through Southern Idaho last month and agree there isn't much there in terms of hardwood. Elder would be awful--way too soft. I think a bow could be made of Douglass fir. Should be lots of that at HomeDepot or Lowes.

[Ippus]

Well now... I think the guys at the local HD must be gaslighting me.

I swear the last half dozen times I was in there looking, there was just no hardwood board lumber to be found (outside the laminate stuff in the flooring section).

But lo and behold, I went in there with my brother on Labor Day and there was half one side of an aisle dedicated to hardwood...

Not a ton of it, but they have 1x2s in walnut, cherry, and red oak... and the red oak is about $2 a foot. The hunt begins!

Best shot may be to use juniper and back it with sinew, as did the early inhabitants of your area. I just drove through Southern Idaho last month and agree there isn't much there in terms of hardwood. Elder would be awful--way too soft. I think a bow could be made of Douglass fir. Should be lots of that at HomeDepot or Lowes.

Asharrow, do you have any suggestions for how to get the right piece of juniper? Same as any other wood, just look for a good straight trunk or branch? There's an awful lot of wind around here, and the lilac I got last year (which looked so promising on the outside) was incredibly twisty-grained (360-degree corkscrew within 48").

[Ippus]

On that note, maybe somebody with board bow experience can solve a little conundrum for me:

I've seen some sources/buildalongs etc that say edge grain has to be straight as possible with no runoff, and the straight lines on the back are secondary, buuuut...
tTBB IV (Ch.1, Tim Baker) says in no uncertain terms that if the lines on the back are straight, the edge grain means bupkis.

"All that matters is that ring lines on the face of the board, the future back of the bow, are straight. Don't bother looking at the ring lines on the side of the board. They can look terribly violated yet the board still be a perfect stave - the why of this is explained further on.
[...]If a board has perfectly straight ring lines from one end of the board to the other, and if those ring lines are perfectly parallel with the edge of the board, any ring lines that appear on the side of the board will also be perfectly straight and parallel from one end to the other.
But if ring lines on the face are even a bit out of parallel with the edge of the board, this will cause ring lines on the side of the board to run downhill at a sharp angle, giving the illusion of a terribly violated board. This is only illusion[...]" (pp.31-32)

Baker's reasoning seems pretty sound. Is this just a case of "trust Baker to know what he's talking about and let TBB trump anything you read on the internet"?

[GB]

I've probably reread that part in my copy a hundred times and still don't understand it.  Most of the boards I find are rift sawn and I do look for straight ring lines on the face the entire length.  A little waviness in the ring lines doesn't bother me.  On the edge grain, I'll tolerate two, maybe three run ups per the length of the board.  In the "Bows from Boards" chapter there are some illustrations of the edge rings and what they call "the angle of violation" and I go by that, too.  Out of the hundreds of boards I've looked at, I've only found one that had perfectly straight ring lines on the face and the edge. 
On bows that I back with hickory, I'm a bit less particular.  But then I have to find an almost perfect hickory board for the backing strips.  It takes some looking.