Bow Wood

[klr650Teach]

Hi Guy n Gals,

I retired and relocated from British Columbia Canada to central Mexico to the state of Jalisco. I've now got the time to try my hand at bow making but seems I run into a brick wall every time I try to find what used to be common hardwoods. The standard bow woods which are the most common seem to be non existent here with the exception of board woods from the local lumber yard. Oak does exist but it is illegal to cut. I'm hoping to find stave wood so I can do the splitting and curing myself. So here I am in a new country with all new types of trees with no idea which would be good to used for bow making.

One wood that is very common here is Jacaranda, can anyone tell me if it can be used to build a decent bow? Thanks

[KenH]

Do you mean the blue flowering ornamental tree called Jacaranda here in the States?  There are some woods down there which are called Jacaranda which are varieties of Brazilian Rosewood and Cocobolo.

Truth be told, you might be better off making connections with a couple of suppliers of bow wood up here and making a road trip.  Another thought is to get in touch with a local archery organization, if you can find one, and see what they might have to say. 

Do you have a copy of Traditional Bowyers Bible #1?  If I remember right it has a quite exhaustive list of bow-woods.  There should be some woods down your way that are both available and make good bows.

[klr650Teach]

I have The Traditional Boyer's Bible I, II, and III as well as the Bent Stick. You are correct, there is a good list of about ten main types of woods used in bow making centered around the USA and Canada. The problem here in Mexico is that it is illegal to cut down a live tree without a permit which makes finding staves from live trees almost impossible.

Red Oak is available here in board form which is not kiln dried. So there is another wrinkle.

I was reading in the above books that a person is best off to find suitable LOCAL woods. Most of the trees around here are deciduous which consist of more hard wood than softer woods. The Pine down here is ridiculously hard, you have to drill a pilot hole before you can put a screw into it. There are many hardwoods down here, problem is that they are different and I know nothing about their properties for bow making or otherwise.

I'll have to keep looking for local trees that I can get my hands on from the tree services and then try to determine if they can be used for bow making.

[KenH]

There's a site called the Wood Database -- www.wood-database.com -- which has physical properties of woods from all over the world.  What you'll need is a Field Guide to Mexican trees so you can identify what trees are what species in your area -- local common names don't matter. 

Use the Wood Database to create a table with the specs of some of the good, mediocre and bad-ish bow woods from TBB.  Specs like hardness, modulus of elasticity, etc.  TBB tells you what is important.  Then find specs for some of the local woods and compare to the known bow woods.

[klr650Teach]

Thanks for the data base link KenH. I'll check that our in the next day or so when I don't have so much on my plate.

As for Field Guides for trees of Mexico..........I've looked and looked with no luck. Google searches bring up 1 actual guide for Mexico and it's a folding pamphlet type thing for 8 bucks. That's it! Amazon lists the same one and nothing more. Many books show up for North America but they stop short of the Mexican border. Strange as I was taught in school that Mexico was part of North America. Anyhoo, you are correct when you say I need a tree guide. I agree, that's exactly what I need but can't find one. It's like it doesn't exist for Mexico. Surely there has to be one (one would think). But I've not been able to find it. A year back or so I came across one but it was not available in English, only Spanish. My Spanish is getting better but I'm not there yet.

[KenH]

Check out this:  https://fieldguides.fieldmuseum.org/
The one from Rainforest Publications looks good actually.
Also there are field guides to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona trees that will also be valid for Mexico.

[EwokArcher]

I'm blessed with osage here in oklahoma. In your situation I think I'd work on some red oak board bows which can be really fun projects while waiting on split staves of random local woods to dry. When you start experimenting with unknown wood just go wide and long. I would go 2 inches at the handle pyramid style and make them 67 inches static handle keep the poundage around 40. That would be my starting formula with any non identified local wood. See how the wood handles the stress then adjust on your next stave of the same wood. More work with trial and error but heck it's all fun and learning right.  Take pictures of the trees and results maybe make a tree guide for the next guy.

[klr650Teach]

EwokArcher, I believe this will be the path I'll have to take. Humidity can be very high here at times of the year/summer and very dry through the winter. I've yet to read how it will affect the bows that I make or the staves I cure and season or for that matter the board bows as well as the boards here are not kiln dried. It should be a challenge. I'll dig deeper into TTBB and study up on it and how humidity might affect my bow building here.

KenH, thanks for the link to the field museum. Unfortunately there was really nothing in those guides for what the tree itself looks like. There were photos of leaves and fruits which could be used as well once you have already found your tree, but very few shots of the trees themselves. I'll keep digging. I did find one for trees of Texas online which was the best so far but few of those trees of Texas exist here. I appreciate your effort.