help with belly wood for ELB?

[Thousandstar]

Hello all
I've having a hard time finding any wood for the belly of my English Longbow project that I can afford. I've looked for lumber and no one in my area carries anything other than red oak, popular and pine. Staves online are way out of my price range. My only option is to cut and season my own staves. I live in West Virginia what would be the best choice for belly wood stave. Maple which species, Ash, Birch etc?
Thanks in advance for any help.

[fujimo]

pm sent

[LittleBen]

You can probably find hickory geowing in WV if you have access to some woods. What are you using for the backing?

Hickory, Ash, Maple, Yew, Ipe, ERC, Osage, where to begin.

Look for a sawmill near you. Box stores are not the spot for prime bow wood. Most lumber mills sill let you mull through the stacks of wood and they often carry Ipe, jatoba, cumaru, goncalo alves, sometime wenge.

Usually white, and red oak, hickory, cherry, hard maple.

I would just refer you to the traditional bowyers bible I-IV.

hopefully others will chime in. If nothing else three rivers sells osage baords for less than a stave will run. I think tenbrook (on here) is still selling a  bamboo backing strip and an ipe belly core for like $49 shipped. look him up.

Good luck.