a wood question

[Frosty the Bowman]

ok, so I have seen this mentioned by a few of you, and was wondering if some one could explain it to me.

I have seen where someone was asking about wood choices for a build, and someone would say that they are not sure if it would work because "the belly wood/ or back, would over power the other."

I hope this make sense, as its 2 AM, and my mind is a little fuzzier then usual.

How do you figure out if it is a good combo or not?  What can you compare of the wood(s) to see what would work better together and combos to avoid?

This can be for any kind of build you can think of, please enlighten and educate me O Great Guru's of the Wood.

Thanks

[Pat B]

Each type of wood has different characteristics as far as compression strength and tension strengths. Wood is stronger in tension than in compression, some more than the other. Woods like hickory are very strong in tension and not so much in compression. The tension strength is what makes hickory a good choice for backing but not as good, IMO, as a belly wood although some folks have used it for belly wood with success.
  Woods like osage are strong in tension and in compression so it can be used for both.
  There are websites that give the strengths and weaknesses of different woods.
 If you think about a bow bending the back is pulled lengthwise. The amount of the stretch involved depends on the wood. Bamboo(a grass and not actually a wood) is very strong in tension and makes a very good backing.
  The belly on the other hand is being compressed lengthwise. If the tension side is way more strong than the compression side it will actually crush the wood cells in the belly, causing excess set or even worse, frets, compression fractures. These frets appear as small hair line cracks going across the grain, actually breaking the wood fibers. Generally frets are lethal to bows.
 Different wood have different tension strengths so for a not so strong in compression wood like ash for example bamboo is too strong for a backing but maple, elm or even ash will work as a backing material. For super compression strong woods like osage or ipe, bamboo or hickory will make a very good backing.
  Locust, one of the strongest in compression woods in North America is brittle so it will fret easily if overpowered by strong backings but also by itself is made into a selfbow. You have to finess tiller gingerly to prevent this in locust.
  I hope this didn't confuse you even more.Fine one of the "wood characteristic" websites and study the woods you plan to use before jumping in with both feet.

[psychmonky]

Wow Pat. That pretty much sums it up.    

[Frosty the Bowman]

Man oh man, Pat that sure is a load of information    

Thanks for taking that much time to help me.
What is a good site you would suggest to look up this info?

I did pull up a chart about bow wood, but i admit I did not really understand much of it. It just gave some refrence # with the intials SG in front of it. Not sure what SG means though.  Then it just says a few facts about the wood, not much tecnical info.

Thanks

[okie64]

Sg stands for specific gravity. Its basically a measure of how dense a piece of wood is. For example, If a specific piece of woods sg is .80 all that means is that when it is dry 80 percent of it will sink in water and 20 percent of it will be sticking out of the water. In general, as sg goes up so does compression strength but not 100 percent of the time. Yew and junipers are strong in compression but light in density campared to osage and tropical woods. I have found wood charts to be pretty much worthless for bow building. A bow has several jobs to do all at the same time and wood charts dont take that into consideration. Hope all that makes sense.

[Roy from Pa]

Frosty there is only ONE good bow wood, that is Osage. Then there is another good one, Yew. After that Hickory. But after that are a few others:)

[LittleBen]

I had started to write a long elaborate post about my thoughts on overpowering belly woods but I kicked myself before hitting send.
My brief thoughts: unless your an engineer or math prodigy, the likely hood of making real constructive use of a material properties chart is slim. There's too much to get into in one reply but it's more than stiffness in tension and compression. It's also what's called the elastic limit/ the % compression at which the wood permanently deforms and at a point gets compression fractures. It's also not just the combination of woods but also the thickness of the backing and belly wood and the overall design of the bow. Example: if you severely overbuild a bow(much longer and wider than necessary) it will be much less likely the belly will be overpowered by a mismatch of woods.
Bottom line, there are a lot of well demonstrated combinations as mentioned above (i.e. bamboo/ipe etc.). If in doubt go with a thin backing rather than a thicker one, or just ask about a specific combo if anyone has tried it.
Then there's always sinew, don't think anyone has ever overpowered a bow with that stuff.

Good luck! Hope to see a bow (or a stack if bows) from you soon. Get cracking and you'll be ready for next years bow swap!

[Pat B]

I got my knowledge from years of trial and error. For me to try to read and understand any of the scientific info would be like me trying to read and understand Chinese. My mind just doesn't work that way.

[macbow]

Well said again Pat.

[So-Mo Archer]

Kevin, Pat and LittleBen are right, that the charts and lists are for people that use calculus on a daily basis, and don't translate well to normal folks. The best thing to do is try a combo, and see if it works or ask here before you try.

Roy is half right that osage, yew, and hickory are awesome woods, but he is spoiled a bit    .

The key is good design and tillering, and not to ask a bow to do something it doesn't or can't do.

[Q73]

I built a very nice gun cabinet years ago out of purple heart and walnut. Came out very nice and works properly to what it was built for.

After recently getting into traditional archery I have been thinking about building a bow. But after reading all this stuff, I think I better not. It probably would not be very nice, like the gun cabinet, and I bet it dang sure would not work properly.

I guess making my own strings will be about as far as I go into building stuff.  

[Q73]

Originally posted by Q73:
I built a very nice gun cabinet years ago out of purple heart and walnut. Came out very nice and works properly to what it was built for.

After recently getting into traditional archery I have been thinking about building a bow. But after reading all this stuff, I think I better not. It probably would not be very nice, like the gun cabinet, and I bet it dang sure would not work properly.

I guess making my own strings will be about as far as I go into building stuff.    

After posting this above I thought of a question. Is there a place on the great intraweb, that shows a tutorial for bow building? Like a nice laminated bow? One of these days you guys are going to be lining up to by my bows.Once I get something in my head it is hard to get it out until I succeed or it kills me.

[Frosty the Bowman]

Quinton,

Hey don't beat yourself up, that's what we keep old Roy around for, that and cause he makes us all laugh.

Seroiouslly, there are some very good build alongs on here, one in particular is by 4estTrakker, called "so you want to build a bow". It is for a pyrimid style, which from what thes guys have taught me is a lot easier to start with then a laminated or glass bow.

Sam Harper on Poor Folks bows has good info as does George Tseouklies( I know I just butchered that name, Sorry) they both have alot og good info and build along advice.

another amazing thing is youtube, and Borriar Bows, he has alot of good videos as well.

I am sure with enough patiance and time you can build a fine bow.
But seriiuosly, your all gonna line up to buy MY bows, sorry hate to burst your bubble.      

[okie64]

Originally posted by Roy from Pa:
Frosty there is only ONE good bow wood, that is Osage. Then there is another good one, Yew. After that Hickory. But after that are a few others:)

Hes almost right about one thing, shouldve said great bow wood instead of good bow wood. Seriously though Frosty, theres osage and then theres all the other woods. No other wood even comes close to it for bowbuilding. Once you build a couple bows outta osage you'll understand.  

[4est trekker]

My dad taught me the following years ago and it still holds true:

"If I tell you, you'll forget.  
If I show you, you'll remember.  
If I have you experience it, you'll understand."    

You just gotta build a bow, bro!  There's more info on this site and across the Web than you can shake a stick at...regardless of what wood it is    :D    Use the search function on this site until you've exhausted the resource.  Then move to Primitive Archer and do the same.  Then scour the rest of the Web.  If that still doesn't suit you, buy/borrow/beg a copy of the Traditional Bowyer's Bible (any or all of the four volumes you can get your hands on).  Heck, read the free pages available through Google.  

All that said, you can theorize, hypothesize, and conjecture 'til the cows come home to roost.  But you'll just be full of theories, hypotheses, and conjectures.  I'd rather be full of splinters holding a bow in my hand.     Get you a cheap (albeit satisfactory) piece of red oak or hickory from the lumber yard and get cracking...well, maybe not cracking.  That's not a good sound when building bows.    :eek:

[Q73]

Thanks for advice fellas. I truly appreciate it.  

[LittleBen]

All I'm going to say is this. 4est Trekker is right on.

My first bow took me a year to decide to build, 1 day to get all the tools I needed, a week of scraping with everything from a kitchen knife to a rasp.

My second one took 3 or 4 days, and now I typically dont spend more than a couple hours cranking out a board bow ... maybe a full afternoon.

Get to making and they start flowing nicely.

[Frosty the Bowman]

Thanks to all of you, you are all so awsome and encouraging to me and a whole lot of other newbies on here.        

I am planning on doing a build just as soon as I can have the spare time, right now as long as I give up sleeping I would have 5-6 hrs a day    

Frosty

[eflanders]

Originally posted by 4est trekker:
My dad taught me the following years ago and it still holds true:

"If I tell you, you'll forget.  
If I show you, you'll remember.  
If I have you experience it, you'll understand."    

You just gotta build a bow, bro!  There's more info on this site and across the Web than you can shake a stick at...regardless of what wood it is     :D     Use the search function on this site until you've exhausted the resource.  Then move to Primitive Archer and do the same.  Then scour the rest of the Web.  If that still doesn't suit you, buy/borrow/beg a copy of the Traditional Bowyer's Bible (any or all of the four volumes you can get your hands on).  Heck, read the free pages available through Google.  

All that said, you can theorize, hypothesize, and conjecture 'til the cows come home to roost.  But you'll just be full of theories, hypotheses, and conjectures.  I'd rather be full of splinters holding a bow in my hand.      Get you a cheap (albeit satisfactory) piece of red oak or hickory from the lumber yard and get cracking...well, maybe not cracking.  That's not a good sound when building bows.     :eek:  

Truer words have never been said! Your Dad was a very wise man 4est.