Tropical and exotic belly woods.

[LittleBen]

Has anyone used any if the tropical woods for a laminated Bo belly. I'm interested in experiences with shedua, wenge, zebra wood and others.
I know ipe is super common and awsome. Jatoba is also used and I've used cumaru which worked well but chrysalled more easily than ipe.

Any experience helpful.

[bigbob2]

Only used Zebra from that list but it worked fine.

[rainman]

Coco Bolo and Bloodwood both work well.  For Coco Bolo you need to make the bow narrower than you would with Osage.

[LittleBen]

Anyone tried Gonzalo Alvie's/tigerwood, masaranduba, bocote, bubinga, purpleheart

[Pat B]

It all depends on the compression strength of the exotic wood you want to use. Purple heart is a very strong, dense wood but not the best as a belly wood because, like black locust, it is brittle and easily frets. Ipe on the other hand is strong and dense and does make a good belly wood. I don't use many tropical woods so these are two that I know something about.

[okie64]

Ive used purpleheart, ipe and massaranduba with hickory backs. Like Pat said purpleheart will fret easily and isnt worth the effort it takes as it is the hardest wood Ive ever worked. Massaanduba and ipe are both good belly woods but I would choose massaranduba over ipe. I'll try to post some pics of a few later today.

[LittleBen]

Pat- totally agree but I can't seem to find any good database on wood compression strength and stiffness. Unless someone starts printing stress strain curves for various woods it'll be hard to predict set, and fretting. Figured I'd just shoot for personal experiences.

Okie- I'd be interested to see that.

[Sal]

Dan (rainman) I would love to see a picture of one of your cocobolo bows, I'll bet they look awesome.

[rainman]

Sal Last one I made that held together the Coco Bolo turned real dark after a couple of years.  I gave to a young man who wanted to start shooting real bows and don't have any Pics.  Might have to do another one this year.  They look great when first finished kinda like Osage.

[okie64]

Heres a couple of bendy handle hickory backed massarandubas, 50 and 70 pounds
 
Hickory backed purpleheart with belly frets