Walnut

[Bow-cephus]

So is black walnut a better bow wood than other walnuts or are they all about the same?
Also how is pecan??

[talkingcabbage]

Here's a copy of a great list on paleoplanet:

WALNUT: black .55. Semi-ring-porous, easy to work, elastic for its mass, similar in performance to cherry, but more tension-safe. Will try to chrysal where cherry wont. A wonderful, overlooked bowwood. Bows can be all sapwood or all heartwood, or mixed, sapwood taking a bit more set in compression. The off-white sapwood can be worked down to 25% or so of limb thickness, creating appealing contrast with the almost black belly. Very high heartwood extractive level, so as with similar woods, it may be more resistant to water absorption. Its reported not to warp with rising and falling humidity, possibly for this reason.
WALNUT, European .56. Design as per Black. Not as pretty, but makes a nice bow. Strong enough in tension to tolerate being a backward bow: the crowned sapling surface as belly, the split back surface tillered.
WENGE. About .67, determined by comparing same-size samples to known SG woods. African hardwood. Common in hardwood yards. Oils to a rich near-black. Looks impressive with a white hickory or rawhide back. When worked, wenge dusts up badly on its back, causing backs to pop off unless cleaned unusually well before gluing. The wood seems somewhat oily. Of possibly 100 boards observed, all were fairly thin ringed, but with even thinner earlywood. Wenge is more brittle in tension than same SG pecan. It wont allow the same degree of back fiber violation or as much overbending before breaking. A Uniform Bend Test sample took of set when bent 3.5 at 24.5lb An average of three osage tests yielded 3.5 at 34lb. So, at equal thickness Osage and wenge were equally elastic, but wenge would have to be about 30% wider to have equal drawweight at equal set. This is based on just one wenge test, but comports with wenge bows Ive made.

Also, pecan is a type of hickory, so it's real good for bows especially with the selfbows.

Here's the link to that paleoplanet post:

 http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/6213/t/List-of-Potenial-Bow-Wood-Species-With-Comments.html

[wildcat hunter]

Last year I made a Walnut self-bow and had it strung, just standing by the kitchen ( kiln dried wood) , all of a sudden "BANG" it broke, pieces all over the place. I think the wood was too dry! I love Walnut - I made another one and backed it with Locust - it pulls 20lbs and is ok for the kids. I am now working on a Walnut bow - no laminations, just Walnut, its for my own pleasure ( will not be shooting it ), its for show only, Almost done, I plan on hanging it on the wall. Got to get a camera!~!

[Jeremy]

Walnut is one of my favorites in a glass lam bow.
Looks great as a selfbow, but I haven't made one w/ it

[Bow-cephus]

Thanks guys, I just found some that I'm sure is black but not positive that an older gentleman has in huge slabs and offered me a fair price. I am getting a little low so I may have to get some! Thanks!!

[PapaB]

I have lots of Black Walnut laying around and wanted to build a bow from it.  I tried making a 50# bow but it blew up during tillering.  I just finished a 40# Black Walnut backed with White Oak.  It is a very nice looking bow.  I am now making a 55# Black Walnut backed with Hickory.  Can't wait to see how it turns out.

[Bow-cephus]

Thats awesome!, out of curiosity what is going rate for black walnut?

[Jeremy]

Kind of depends on your local availability.  'Round here, 4/4 goes for $7-8 per board foot.  8/4 is in the $10-12/BF

Nearly everything you'll find is going to be black walnut (even if it's not dark - you can buy all sapwood boards easily enough and the wood lightens over time).  European walnut (English Walnut) is what's cultivated for nuts, and it's far more valuable for that than for lumber.  Claro walnut is almost impossible to find boards of.  What's sold as "claro walnut" is usually wood from the burl of where the english walnut is grafted onto a claro walnut rootstock.

[Tom Leemans]

I like it for laminations. I've put full length lams of it in a couple of my BB bows, between the boo and the osage belly. They really hold the reflex well. Been shooting one of them since 2004 and it shows no loss in performance.

[Bow-cephus]

Thanks I'll give it a try what about boo between hickory belly and walnut back? read something about cutting bow profile out of boo first before applying/thinning? what would one do with this?