What is Vine Maple?

[Dooley]

I see frequent referrence to vine maple being used for bows, and this might be a dumb question, but what exactly is Vine Maple?

[Wengerd Bowyer]

If its what we have out here in Mt then its a bush/tree that grows about 5"-6" that thickest, and if your lucky you might find some thats 8"-10" thick. Other then the leaves it looks like serviceberry.....if you know what that is.

[Pat B]

Vine maple (Acer circinatum), a true maple grows commonly as large multi-stemmed tree in the 10' to 20' height range. Vine maple is native to and grows along stream banks from British Columbia down to Northern California. Because it grows in thickets it is almost vine like and inter tangles to form these thickets. I think it is only the compression side of the trunk that is used for bows. I may have this backwards.
  Vine maple makes very good bows and some of the coolest character bows you've ever seen.

[SourOwl]

VINE MAPLE;  THE SCOURGE OF LOGGERS IN WESTERN WASHINGTON!  ITS A VERY TOUGH MAPLE THAT GROWS ALL OVER HERE, SEEMS TO NOT MIND THE SHADE BECAUSE IT FLOURISHES UNDER THE FIR TREES, FORMING SOME FANTASTIC "CHARACTER" AS IT REACHES FOR THE SUN.   IT'S BETWEEN FOUR AND EIGHT INCHES IN DIAMETER, WITH A HUGE ONE PERHAPS TWELVE INCHES.

IT'S VERY TOUGH AND SPRINGY; HAS BEEN KNOWN TO RESIST EVEN HUGE CRAWLER TRACTORS, SPRINGING BACK UP AFTER THE MACHINE HAS PAST OVER.  IT DOES MAKE VERY GOOD BOWS, BEING VERY TIGHT-GRAINED AND STRONG.  ITS A WHITE WOOD, AND I LEAVE THE LIMBS OF THE BOWS I MAKE SLIGHTLY WIDER AND THICKER THAN I WOULD OSAGE.  LOTS OF CHARACTER, ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO BREAK IF TILLERED RIGHT.

WHILE GREEN, ITS VERY SPRINGY; FISHERMEN WILL TAKE A PIECE OF GREEN VINE AND BEND IT INTO A CIRCLE, TIE IT TOGETHER, AND WHEN DRY MAKE FISHING NETS FOR TROUT.  EXTREMELY HARD TO BREAK!   DRIES WELL WITH A MINIMUM OF CHECKING IF KEPT IN A COOL PLACE.  I HAVE ROUGHED OUT A BOW, DRIED IT FOR TWO WEEKS, FINISHED IT AND STARTED SHOOTING IT.  IT GETS STRONGER THE LONGER IT SEASONS TOO.  SOUROWL

[SourOwl]

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT VINE MAPLE:  FOR A RELATIVELY CHARACTER-FREE BOW, I SOMETIMES WILL CUT BILLITS, JOIN EM TOGETHER WITH A "W" SPLICE, TO GET TWO LIMBS THE SAME.  I HAVE SELDOM FOUND A PIECE 70 " LONG WITHOUT EITHER A WARP OR OTHER FLAWS FOR A NICE STRAIGHT BOW.  THE GRAIN'S VERY TIGHT, BEING HARD TO FOLLOW A SINGLE GROWTH-RING, SO I USUALLY JUST LET THE WOOD UNDER THE BARK BE THE BACK.  I HAVE VIOLATED THE GROWTH-RINGS WITHOUT ANY PROBLEM AS WELL.  ITS HARD TO SAND SMOOTH;  RESISTS THE SAND-PAPER, HAVING "WISKERS" BUT SCRAPES QUITE WELL.    SOUROWL

[Dooley]

Thank you all for your replies.   Does this wood only grow on the West coast, or can it be found in the East as well?

[Pat B]

Only in the North West. My book says British Columbia down to California. Probably grows east of there also but not by much.

[Andrew Wesley]

my first self bow was vine maple when i got involved with the TBW 5 years ago. they hold a self bow session called WAJAM every year for people to come and learn, with free Vine Maple and board blanks for kids to work on.

it's not the best shooting bow wood. but it's bomb proof to learn on. easy to work with and pretty hard to really screw up. and makes some amazing character bows.

i miss Washington...  

[Chesapeake]

Like others have said, its everywhere around SW Washington. Somewhat of a weed and pain, it is.

5-6" diameter would be about the max normal in my opinion. Cant remember seeing any bigger than that, but sure it exists. The stuff grows more horizontal than vertical and bends and twists chasing the sun on the forest floor. The limbs, or trunks (it all looks the same) have kinks and bends everywhere. Its very springy and hard to break cleanly. If you try and break off a limb it will split and kind of smash into a wad of fibers that wont give up. You have to twist and twist many times to finaly get the limb off.

[Dale Sharp]

Pat B, It is the tension side, that facing the sky as it grows, that becomes the back of the bow. It has had the job of holding the weight of the shrub as it grew and there the growth rings will be tighter together and wonderful in tension strength.

The leaves typically have nine nodes, but sometimes seven. The leaves turn a crimson red in the Fall.

A story, Chesapeake, about larger diameter vine maple: about 7 or 8 years ago after attending a WAJAM (as Andrew mentioned above) some men from the west side of Washington's Olympic peninsula asked what size would make a good stave because they had "tons of it growing" where they lived. They were told that finding something 4" in diameter is what those of us who live in the Puget Sound region hope for. The men arrived the next year with a pick-up bed FULL of 4" diameter vine maple. And they told us that they had to be very selective, using a 4" gauge, to find enough of them that SMALL. Over near the rain forest, we learned, the shrub typically grows 8" to 10" in diameter!

[Havoc]

I have lived in the North West, Oregon and Washington. I have hunted all over the west coast and have never seen vine maple 8 to 10 inches in dia. I find that the best bows are bade from three to four inches in dia. It is true that it is a dang weed out here and it a pain to go through when hunting. I have also found that animals love bedding down under it as it forms a kind of canopy over them.

[Ragnarok Forge]

When I want to find a big buck I find a good bedding area and slowly hunt around large thickets of vine maple near food and water sources.  The elk love to be in between varied thickets of it.  Nothing can get in at them without being noticed.  It is a weed around here, fortunately it makes good bows as well.

[JD_Archer]

It's not much fun trying to shoot an arrow though that stuff either...

[Curt Brisky]

I have some pictures of staves on my site. If you want to see what it looks like.  Go to  www.briskybows.com  on the home page click on bow stuff. This is what premium VM looks like.  Most VM is a character bow wood.  VM does make a great bow.  It steams and heat bends well.  I use Yew, Osage and VM as my main bow woods. Also on the home page click on tips and thoughts and there are some instructions on building VM bows.

"Build a kid a bow"

[Dale Sharp]

Hi JM! [Tell KM I say 'hello'?]

I could be remembering the range of size incorrectly; I thought I heard 8" diameter mentioned but perhaps that was the extreme, not 10". If we think of it at WAJAM let's ask Steve. I think he went over there and helped cut a load a year or so later and if so he will have first hand knowledge of how big they can grow in a rain forest.