Tri-lam first attempt (BANG!!!! then we pay taps...)

[Bowjunkie]

Interesting, Jaimie. I respect your opinion, and it raises some questions for me. Was the hickory you used cut by you, and air dried? Did you purchase it somewhere? Kiln dried? (I'm not even 100% convinced it even matters how/how much it's dried).

Do you know how long between cutting and drying and how it was otherwise cared for? I've been failed by hickory that wasnt stored properly prior to drying which degraded its integrity considerably. Can you think of any other factors that might contribute to your experiences with it other than the fact that it's hickory? Have you tried any other hardwoods that you found better suited for backings?

I had a guy try to sell me quarter sawn hard maple last week that was stained blue with fungus  :(

[Troy D. Breeding]

I will say that after thinking back about the hickory I used for the backing it didn't look the best and seemed questionable when I was grinding it to thickness.

Having made thousands of hickory shafts I have seen different properties in hickory. When I was making shafts I started noticing that different pore structure (not grain) made different spine shafts. The material that was tight pore and sanded slick (almost like it had been burnished) would often make 70+ pound spine shafts in 5/16". If the pores were more open looking (almost crunchy looking like toast) it would often only make 50# spine shafts in 11/32".

Things keep coming back to me as I play it through my mind. (Yea, yea,,, I know using something that limited is risky) but the backing I used seemed to be a bit crunchy in pore structure. I'm going to check it further today. I'll take the good limb and if it doesn't burnish smooth I may be on to something.

Still, I'm not going to blame the blow up solely on the backing since the Osage in that limb was questionable.

[Roy from Pa]

Remind me not to buy lams off you anymore... JK
LMFAO    

[J.F. Miller]

Jeff, some of it was cut by me for the sole purpose of making backing out of it, which was quarter sawn and air dried only. I've purchased kiln dried pignut and shagbark hickory boards (some from Keim Lumber, Troy) and made backing out of it. I got some from Torges way back in the day, too. out of all the hickory backed osage bows I've made that I did not sell or give away, only one has survived, and it is a terrible looking piece of rift sawn backing. go figure. I hunted with that bow a season and shot a couple of deer with it. it's retired now.

I suppose you can make anything work if you make it long enough, wide enough and low enough in draw weight. I prefer relatively shorter, heavier bows for hunting that are pretty well strained as close to the limits of the material as I can comfortably make them, and hickory simply does not work in this capacity for me. the ones that didn't blow apart all lifted repairable splinters until I got tired of repairing them. except for the one I still have, that is. I'll never bother with hickory again unless I have no bamboo at my disposal. Bamboo and osage were meant to be together. like peanut butter and jelly, I tells ya.    

[Troy D. Breeding]

Jamie,

Guess different people liking different bows is what makes the world go around.

Personally, I don't like short all wood bows. I've got one bow that is a 60" Osage with sinew backing and snake skins that spits an arrow out with authority. I've taken several deer and hogs with, but it's just not my pick of bows. Too much finger pinch. All my other self and backed bows are 66" or longer.

The bow that I always considered my go to bow was a 72" solid hickory bow that was only 1-1/2" wide. It was made from a hickory board with pretty rough grain run outs. I glued on a handle and steamed in a little reflex on the tips.  

Different strokes for different folks.

[LittleBen]

I've had good success with hickory, but I also bought whole boards, carefully selected, and used only the cleanest straightest pieces for backing. I except essentially zero runout.
I a, not really worried about quarter, rift, flat sawn etc ... I assume all the hickory I've had was kiln dried as it came from the lumberyard. In rough sawn form.

Haven't has bamboo problems either though, so maybe I'm not stressing either enough to know.

[mikkekeswick]

It's very easy to say straight grain but to find a tree with truely straight grain is like looking for a swimming pool in the desert. I have also cut trees and resawn boards into backing strips. A tree can look plum straight yet have spiral grain - rendering it useless for backing strips. I always split them first before taking it to a saw.
If you have had a lot of hickory break on you then it wasn't good hickory. It really is as simple as that. I've made a good few hundred laminated elb's the vast majority with hickory backings and i've had very few failures (I used to run my own business making and selling bows hence the numbers). As Ben says it also really matters how the wood was treated after being cut. hickory can start to decompose very,very quickly if left outside for any length of time.
As for your bows being strained hard...well that's also true for any well made wooden bow. They all need to be strained close to the limits to make a good bow in the first place and as I said the belly wood will chrysal before a good hickory backing goes bang. Every time I got a new hickory board I would make a quicky test to destruction' pyramid bow - these all chrysalled before the backing blew. Eventually I gave up on doing that because I learnt to read the grain well enough that it wasn't necessary.
Also ask yourself why out of all the wood available in the world are axe handles made from hickory?

[Bowjunkie]

Jamie, like you, I like my bows leaning toward the short side, narrow, heavier in draw weight, radiused bellied, almost always osage, and yep bamboo and osage are a special match.

I have used hickory on lesser woods with success, sometimes very thin hickory, and burnished it... which may have helped???

My problem with using wood boards for backings is possible degredation, but also, like Mike alluded to, if I didn't see it standing and split it myself to know how the grain runs, how would I know?

Understanding that grain runout and ring runout are two completely different things, how do we know that a quarter or rift sawn piece hasn't had its grain violated enough to be a problem? I suppose we could try to buy a piece long enough or wide enough that we can cut a piece off and do a test split.

[J.F. Miller]

axe handles are made out of hickory because it is cheaper and easier to come by than osage.    :D

but seriously, I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from using hickory for backing a wooden bow. it can and will work if all of the above stated criteria are met and the maker can deliver the goods on tiller. Still, I consider it a risky proposition, at best. one that I no longer care to take since I have a good supply of strong, straight, lightweight US grown bamboo at my disposal.

[takefive]

I've made 8 hickory backed bows from kiln dried lumber and only one of them lifted a splinter.  I've made two bamboo backed bows and one of them lifted a splinter.  I have no idea why.  Maybe it was operator error or a very small defect in the wood or boo that I didn't see.  Either way, it doesn't make me shy away from using either again.
I read a thread recently on another site where a veteran, very experienced bowyer posted a selfbow that broke on him while he was doing the final tillering.  One after another experienced bowyers chimed in about bows that had broken on them.  These are guys who always post perfectly tillered and crafted bows.  Sometimes it just happens?

[Pat B]

Sorry your bow broke Troy. Did you determine why? Will you post pics of the back where it blew?   I've made lots of hickory backed bows and some with pretty bad grain but never had a backing failure.

[Troy D. Breeding]

Pat,

The backing was a good clean straight grained 1/4 saw piece of hickory.

After looking things over I think the belly wood is the culprit. There was a grain run out and wave right where it blew.

The thing that gets me is the limb that blew looked to be some of the best tillering I have ever done. I pulled it again to take another look at the other limb. It seemed to have a stiff spot that I wanted to work on.

Then Boom!!

[Troy D. Breeding]

Pat,

As you can see the grain in the belly wood wasn't the best.

 

The backing looked pretty good.

 

You will notice the rips from belly and the back went across at an angle. I think it was just a bad call using that piece of Osage.

[Pat B]

Breaks like that usually follow the grain. It looks to me that it lifted a splinter at the beginning of that tear on the back. You have to pay attention to not only the end grain and grain on the back but also the grain down the side of the backing strip.  It is still pretty rare for hickory backing strips to break. Like I said before I've never had a hickory backing fail.

[Troy D. Breeding]

May be wrong, but I don't think the backing was the problem. The piece of backing that's missing popped completely off the back. Unlike the belly which blew into several pieces.

Not only that but I had just checked the back by looking and as well as running my hand along the complete length to see if I could feel anything. I've had grain lift on the back of self bows in the past and found it simply by running my hand down the length of the bow.