The Wood Database

[Marc St Louis]

I've been using this website for a few years to look up species and their mechanical properties.  They have re-done their site lately, can't seem to find the mechanical properties anymore.  They have added a new page called Bow Woods (From A Mathematical Perspective).... wood-database.com/wood-articles/bow-woods/.  Interesting read.  People that are moderately tech savvy should be able to fix the web address

P.S. Update; it looks like this page has been there awhile, I just didn't notice it

[Ryan Jacob]

Hey Marc, I’ve been using this site a while back. If you’re trying to search by properties click the “wood finder” tab, there are sliders on the side you can use. Also, as quick heads up, the site doesn’t have a few woods in there list yet like Ocean Spray, Vine Maple, etc. seems they need more samples.

[Bayou Ben]

I've used this site since I started making bows about 3 years ago.  I've compiled an xl spreadsheet of this data to compare different properties of the woods that I've used in bow making.  The list grows every year  . 

I've made up a few columns that represent different ratio's that for the most part are representative of how the woods react when building.  Elastic in compression ratio is a comparison of the woods crushing strength to it's elastic modulus, and elastic in tension ratio is the woods modulus of rupture to it's elastic modulus.  It puts a number to how much the wood will take tension or compression before it breaks.
 Most of the true bow woods score high in both categories.  Osage scores the highest in elastic in tension ratio, and the second highest in elastic in compression ratio. 

This is just something I've put together on my own, so feel free to add your own comments if interested.  Pretty interesting to me. 
 

[Bayou Ben]

I've added a few more wood species including known bow woods and some non-bow woods.  And we have a new winner, pacific yew.  Hmmmm.  Starting to see a trend here.