Thoughts on Sassafras?

[Dave Bowers]

Hey fellas, I just got a hold of some sassafras while working yesterday. I picked up a couple of medium size limbs to mess around with. I saw it listed in one of the bowyers bibles as a bow wood. But I've never worked with it before anyone have any thoughts on the wood?

[JamesV]

I don't know about selfbows but  for my personal glass recurve I used Sassafrass in the riser with IPE accents, made a beautiful bow and smells good when cutting and sanding.

[Dave Bowers]

Thanks James, I guess I'll just give it a whirl? I agree it is a good smelling wood.

[Bowjunkie]

Sassafras makes an awesome limb wood in a laminated longbow. It's very underated. Flat sawn, it is almost indistinguishable from red elm. I put quartersawn sassafras on the inside and flat sawn on the outside under the clear glass.

As a selfbow, I don't prefer it as it has to be boat paddle wide to take minimal set, or even survive.

[stumpssticks]

sassafras plus selfbow = snapafrass .i have built three and none survived. makes for a fine lam under glass though.  jeff

[Dave Bowers]

Thanks for the info guys, guess I'll make something else from it.

[Dan Landis]

I've been toying with the idea of backing sassafras with sinew, anyone ever tried it?  Would I just be wasting my time????Dan

[coaster500]

I built a 45ish pound elb with it it''s still together buy took a bunch of set and is a real slug now. It is very soft wood but smell real good.....

[DavidV]

I was just looking at some sassafrass trees the other day. I guess I won't cut any staves from it. I heard about peopl making ELB's from it but I don't really like those anyway. Mulberry is right next to it and osage is easy to get so I'll stick to that.