Elm, White Elm, Red Elm

[Dick in Seattle]

I got to conduct a quick shopping raid on Crosscut Hardwoods this afternoon.  Came out with a nice 4' x 8" x 8/4 piece of walnut from which will come many risers, a 7' X 8" x 3/4 clear black walnut plank, which can make limb lambs or be used in laminated risers, and 3 assorted 3/4 planks of nice maple... two clear grain and one with a little curl.   This gives me more variety  acceptable stuff to work with than just the red oak and hickory I have had on hand.

They had a lot of elm... but no red elm... just "elm" and "white elm".   I know that red elm is a favored lam wood.  I'd be interested in any comments or comparisons between red elm and other elms.  If white elm is anywhere near as usable as red, I have a heck of a source right close by.

[Diamondback59]

dick ill tell ya flat out i bulid mostley self bows  but  when it comes to elm ill take white any day over red  never have tryed the white for lams but i do use red in my glues up bows  some of the fastest static recurves ever made by marc st louis are  white  and i got lots of it here if ya can get it all cut ready to go ur way ahead cuz it s no fun at all to split white elm ha  have fun and good luck brock

[Dick in Seattle]

I may have once worked for the Forest Service, but a logger I'm not!  I'll take my wood the same way I take my meat... pre-cut and packaged  :^)  I'll leave wrestling it raw out of the woods and fields to guys like you.    

Hopefully there will be some more input, but this afternoon I was standing in front of vertically stacked white elm planks from 8 to 16 feet long, of varying widths and thicknesses from 3/4 to 6/4.  The stack was maybe 6 to 8 planks deep and about 8 feet long on the floor.   For laminate use I'm cutting to 2" x 36" and then resawing lam pieces from that.  I could get a heck of a lot of lams from one good plank!

[Diamondback59]

sounds good dick  if you do get a bunch cut  give me a hollar  i might trade or buy a set of em from ya cuz id like to try some white elm for some lams   and same goes for me  i aint a splittin no log either i got 2 young boys   i sat there watched em do it  and  not for me haha ill stick to my osage and maulberry    brock

[Springbuck]

Red elm is favoered mostly for it's light weight and pretty grain, but it is usually stained.  When they say white lem, I bet they mean a specie with more sapwod than heartwood.  No reason NOT to use it, if you can make it as pretty as you want...the grain will show up nicely with a dye or stain.

[shamus]

speaking in regards to selfbows: Slippery (red) elm is a good bow wood. I was on my way to making a great a bow out of it, but a hidden knot broke one of the limbs. I wrote an article about it. Great potential for a bow wood.

[Asafan]

Dick, the unique reason of rare use of a white elm (he too has brown nucleus, but small) - pale colouring. On quality he does not concede to the majority of breeds of a tree. Some kinds have beautiful wavy figure, or longitudinal dark hyphens.