Horizontal Sawn boards???

[Raf]

I am in the process of shopping for wood for my first board bow. The only place around me that carries hickory boards are all horizontal sawn. Can I use horizontal sawn? If so, how would I go about picking the wood grain?

They guy also has sycamore quarter sawn and their ash is also horizontal sawn. They have both white and red oak that are quarter split. I would love to hear some advice or suggestions, this is my first bow, so I'm kind of nervous and don't want to waste money buying junk timber. Thanks a lot guys!

Raf

[SportHunter]

Check out pine hollow longbow kits, there are several to choose from. Good luck on your build.

[takefive]

Look at the long edge of the board and pick out one of the grain lines and follow it the entire length of the board.  If it runs reasonably straight the whole length, you're on your way to picking a good one.  Then look at the grain on the narrow edge and if that is reasonably square you're good to go as long as the face of the board is knot free.  I'd go with hickory, because perfectly straight and square grained boards are just about impossible to find.  Most of the hickory boards I find are bias sawn and have some grain runoff.  As tough as hickory is, you can still make a safe bow from it as long as the runoff isn't severe.  How much is too much is an educated guess and depends on how heavy a bow you're making.

[Roy from Pa]

Here ya go, Raf...

 http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000122

[John Scifres]

What is a "horizontal sawn" board.?

[Raf]

Sorry about the confusion, I think the correct term is flat sawn.

Thank you for linking the red oak board build, I will look more closely into that.

Takefive, thank you for the advice, I will go back and take a closer look at the specifics that you pointed out

[John Scifres]

Flat sawn is fine if the grain is straight.

[Raf]

Thanks! So do as takefive advised?

[John Scifres]

http://sticknstring.webs.com/ferretsboardbow.htm

[takefive]

Here is some info on choosing a board from George T's site.  He's made a lot of board bows.

 http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/boards.html

I'm a little hesitant to post these pic's because it's not a great board, but evidently good enough for a 45# bow.  This is the edge and face grain from a hickory board that I ripped the backer for a hickory/walnut/osage tri-lam 6 months ago.  I've probably put 1000 arrows thru it since then.  Hopefully that lumber yard has one a tad better so you can start on your bow.

 

 

[Raf]

Thank you so much for the help John and takefive. I am going to slowly get my hand tools together and build my tillering tree while  I search for a better board!

[takefive]

Good luck to you    

[KellyG]

Raf,

I would highly suggest you post as you go along on here and include PICs. Folks on here will give you a ton of advice as you go. And may help you fix issues before they become fatial to the bow.

Look at Erics tillering Gizmo also, it will save you a lot of trouble. Remember never draw it past you intended draw.

[Raf]

     
     

I went to two home depot today and I found this 3/4" x 2.5" x 7' red oak board, does the grain look ok? It is the straightest they have and it has zero knots! Is the board not big enough? I am thinking of building a 35# pyramid at 28" draw.  

As KellyG suggested, I will start a build along when I start. I still need to figure out how to build the tillering tree. Bow scales are so expensive, is it possible to use a fishing scale or a luggage scale? It looks pretty similar.

[takefive]

Grain looks pretty good to me and it's definitely wide enough.  Have to admit that I've only made one bow out of red oak.  I made the limbs 1 3/4"  ( 66" tip to tip ) and it wound up at a little over 35#, but it took about 1 3/4" of set after shooting it awhile.  Maybe it would have been better to make it wider, say 2".  Hopefully some of the guys who build with red oak will weigh in.

[KellyG]

My guess is that is about as good as it gets there. Follow 4est trekker's build and you would be hard press to go wrong. I use a luggage scale my self and used a fish scale be for that. It only went to 50#.

Have fun!

Others should chime in if I am wrong.

[John Scifres]

I use a bathroom scale.  I have a 1x2 board marked with draw length.  It has a slot in the end for the string.  With the slot up and the other end on the scale, I pull down to measure weight.  I have calibrated the scale for 50# using a couple dumbells.  It works great and was essentially free.

[LittleBen]

I've said this before and will say it again, some may disagree with me but thats life.

Red oak is serviceable bow wood. BUT unlike some more dense woods, it can be on the borderline for making hunting weight bows in reasonable lengths (i.e. under 68" or so for 28" draw.) I hyunt from a blind mainly so 68" is simply unacceptable for a hunting bow. I need 64" or less at absolute maximum, and prefer 58-60" (for a 25" draw).

Anyway, red oak like all ring porou7s woods will vary in strength and density based on the ratio of latewood to early wood. If you get a board with large wide rings and very thin latewood, it WILL be much more dense and will be more suitable bow wood.

Same goes for osage and black locust and many others .... but no one is complaining about even marginal osage because its reasonably dense. Red oak is on the border already so it's important to get the most dense oak possible.

Straight grain makes for bow wood.

Wide earlywood and think latewood makes for hunting weight bow wood.

[Grandpa Bill]

I will second 4est trekker's build in the how-to section of this site ... it is what I used for my first pyramid bow.  That one is still shooting almost two years later.

I have only built board bows for the last two years.  Red Oak, White Oak, Ash, Hickory, Ipe, Bamboo all make excellant bows if you follow a few simple rules that have been repeated often:

Straight grain is required to make a board bow.
Straight grain is required to make a board bow.
Straight grain is required to make a board bow.

Good luck on your project, it looks like you have a great board so go make some sawdust and post pictures of your progress.

Grandpa Bill

[George Tsoukalas]

There are 3 kinds of board cuts. The board cut is determined by looking at the butt or the grain on the end as in that last picture which is rift sawn.

There is plain sawn (=), rift sawn (//) and quarter sawn (||). Again the above board is rift sawn.

For plane sawn and rift sawn you can look at the face of the board and allow 2 run outs per limb. The best board will have straight grain from tip to tip.

For quarter sawn you must look at the edge grain and it must be straight with no run outs. It must be tip to tip straight on the edge.

There are buildalongs on my site. There are some other board portions on it.

 http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/index.html

Also, the Traditional Boweyer Bibles Vol 1 amd 2 are good and # 2 has board info by Tim Baker.

Also Comstock's the Bent Stick has board info.

The above board is decent but I am super picky with boards. I would have left it in the stacks; the grain appears to wander off the edge in several spots. I'd back it with silk, linen or burlap.

I rarely do handle  pieces. I let the handle bend and leave it full width. If you rip the board to 1 3/8 in wide you'll get 45-50 if you do your part.

At 1.5 in wide you'll  get 50-55#.

I'd resist the urge to glue on a handle piece for your first few and make a bend in the handle bow.