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Main Boards => The Bowyer's Bench => Topic started by: Buemaker on September 12, 2023, 06:22:10 PM
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I see that many in USA use Red Oak as a self bow wood when making board bows. I do not see White Oak used. Any reason for that? Myself I have only experience with the White Oak that grow here in Norway and it works fine.
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My local Lowe's or Home Depot have red oak Boards and I believe lots of them in the US have it too.
They also have Western Cedar and Poplar but not any good for Bows.
Lowes and Home Depot are Big Box stores/hardware for Home building supplies.
They put the Local MAN Hardware stores out of business years ago.
I have Red and White Oak on my land but I will not be cutting any because it's way to much work for me now days, I will leave it to the young guy's.
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Bue, like Mark said red oak is locally available to almost everyone here in the US. It makes an OK bow and many folks only have access to it and no other bow wood. White oak makes a great bow. It is a stronger bow wood than red oak, at least store bought red oak. Stave red oak is probably stronger than boards red oak because of how they are handled off the stump. White oak is stronger than both.
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I see, thank you.
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As folks are saying. Red vs White Oak is an availability issue. You can get white oak here but you have to go to a real lumberyard, not a Big Box store. When I was a student in Forestry school 50 years ago, one of our wood professors showed us the difference between red and white oak. He had two sawn sticks about 8mm square and 30 cm long. He took a drag off of his cigarette and blew smoke from one end to the other of that perfectly good red oak stick! It took some hard pressure, yes, but red oak is *that* porous. But you can't do that with white oak.
Barrel makers knew the difference ,and never made "tight" (waterproof) barrels from red oak, only from white oak.
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...and it makes bourbon better too. :thumbsup:
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If there’s any kind of wood store around, hickory or ash would be my preference to snag a board for a bow vs any oak