Advice on Elm

[Papa Matt]

Brothers, in a few weeks I'll be starting on my first Elm bow(s). I've never worked with Elm before, and want to approach it with as much knowledge as possible.

My logs are about 5 inches wide, still have bark on, ends were never sealed and only have some little cracks visible in the center. Wood was cut last March. About 6' long. Does Elm tend to split well, to where it would be advisable to split the log a couple times, or at least once, and get 2 or maybe 4 staves from it?

And then, is it like hickory, to where you just take the bark off and the first good ring is your back?

As always I appreciate any advice brothers..

~~Papa Matt

[Bowbound]

From what I have heard elm is very hard to split at all. It is up to you on how many bows you think you can get from it. Other guys will probably chime in. Elm is good to go after you remove the bark. That is all.

[Papa Matt]

Cool, thanks for the advice, Limey. I almost hope everyone talks me out of splitting it, cause I've heard it's hard as well, but at the same time I really hate the idea of throwing all that other wood away.

[knightd]

SAW IT !!

[JackCrafty]

My experience is with cedar elm....splits OK when green and it a real bugger when dry.  There doesn't appear to be much twist with elm, so you're pretty safe if you saw it.  Peel the bark when green.....there may be problems with bugs if you don't.

[Ryan_Gill_HuntPrimitive]

yup yank the bark and thats your back. if its 5" wide i would definitely get 2 out of it if not maybe even three. i'd saw it though just because elm is really good wood and you will want to use as much as possible, just a circular saw or a table saw is what you need. or split  it in 2 but go slow so you dont ruin it,  elm does split very hard, it will spit the wedge back out at you, watch your teeth.  have fun with it anyways- Ryan

[DanaM]

Elm is tough to split due to its interlocking grain, but I would split it as opposed to sawing i, unless yer sure the grain is real straight.
If your not up to it just send it to me

[sailordad]

ya i'll take one too

i aint afraid of some hard work to get it to  split,stringy as it is.
i here it makes nice bows.

if you cant get the wood someplace it gets about -35 degree for awhile,just give the bark a whack with a hatchet and it will
come off in sheets.splitting would still be a biotch though.

[shamus]

Elm will split fine. Just kerf it with a circular saw, then split as normal.

Hickory is not worked down to a ring. Just peel the bark and go. Elm is the same way, but on slippery elm the inner bark is pretty fiberous and pulls off in strands.

 

[Papa Matt]

Thanks to everyone for the awesome advice. I don't have a circular saw so I think I'll just take the chain saw and score it a few inches on the end, then split. Hopefully I can get 3 or 4 good staves but if it's just 2 I'll be satisfied. It has a slight gradual snake to it but no real knots I've seen yet so I don't guess it would split real crooked.

I'll let ya's know how it comes out. Thanks again!


~~Papa Matt

[Ryano]

Don't get to greedy. You'll end up with nothing but fire wood. Even straight grain elm will not split straight. Either kerf the log the whole length or saw it completely in half on a band saw or chain saw. Elm is possibly the the closest thing to indestructible when it comes to violating grain IMO. So you don't need to worry about that to much.

[cowboy]

Good luck with the splitting. I tried to split a 4" specimen and failed misserably . I then attacked the 8" hackberry (which I thought was going to be just as tough) and it practically fell apart, hmm..

[Badger]

 i agree with Ryan, saw it, elm is very forgiving and grain direction is not near as critical as it is with osage. I have had elm warp while drying so tie it down good once spit unless allready dry. Elm is great wood!!  Steve