Sources for Staves

[YosemiteSam]

Looking around at a few of the more common places to buy traditional gear, I see staves for sale that run about $90 for hickory and $130+ for osage.  After trying to find & cure a couple myself, I'm starting to see the value there.  But I've made enough kids bows to pause before plopping down $100 for something that may end up being firewood in my hands.

I've seen some listed on Ebay for about $40-75 but didn't know if this is likely to be poor quality stuff.  For those of you who buy staves, where do you tend to pick these up?

Also, it seems that backing strips have gone way up in price.  I remember picking up a hickory strip from one of the major trad retailers for for $15-20 (not including shipping).  Now, they're priced at $40-50.  What gives?

Because I know somebody will suggest it, I'd love to make one from something local but, sadly, people around here pollard their mulberry trees before the branches get to be more than a few inches in diameter.  And the only wild-growing bow wood is incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens,), which I understand needs to be rather short & with a good sinew backing to work -- something I'm not quite ready for.

[George Tsoukalas]

There is always lumberyard red oak boards. Choose straight rained stocks. Jawge

[Flem]

I'm with George on this. Lumberyard for Hickory, Maple, Oak, etc.
I'm still going to mention it, there has got to be more than just Mulberry growing around you.
Field guide, folding pruning saw, headlamp

[Pat B]

Talk to local tree services, arborist and tree farmers. Where in Cali are you? if near Yosemite there should be yew in the mountains and maybe vine maple or ocean spray or serviceberry. Ocean spray makes good arrows too.

[mmattockx]

There is always lumberyard red oak boards.

I'm with George on this. Lumberyard for Hickory, Maple, Oak, etc.

+1. I live in a bow wood desert and only have lumber yard wood to work with. Hard maple and red oak boards both make very decent bows when selected with care. Also check out local hardwood flooring suppliers, they may have ipe and other more exotic choices in board form.


Mark

[YosemiteSam]

Yes, I’ve made a couple good board bows from maple at Home Depot. I think the best one I ever did was given away in a swap on this forum. I glued in some reflex & it finished almost perfectly flat with decent cast for a 40 lb board bow. Hence, my interest in backing strips. I learned the hard way that I need a good planer to cut my own. The other decent one was rawhide-backed maple. It’s okay at about 45 lb & casting a 600 gr arrow at about 130 fps.  I think I can do better with some reflex.

I’ll have to recheck the field guides for ocean spray & serviceberry. But yew doesn’t grow anywhere near Yosemite, from what I understand. It’s a northwest & more coastal kind of tree. I wish I could find that.

There are occasional maples in the woods but not vine maple. Blue oak, valley oak, live oak and shrub oaks are the dominant oaks. On the coast or further north, I could find bay laurel perhaps.

[Eric Krewson]

I have a friend who has bough a number of eBay osage staves, the cheaper ones are freshly cut(months) and still green. There are some bargains to be had but you have to know your osage and recognize obvious pitfalls.

I looked over the current listings, some looks OK but most of the staves are on the short side with tight rings.

[Forwardhandle]

Before I had access to cutting my own staves I bought a lot of hickory & maple staves off of ebay , one trick I learned was to contact the seller for a couple of reasons ,one to ask them if they had any fresh cut staves so I could debark my self , some sellers just ruffly draw knife the bark off , then I would ask them if they had any specific species of staves I was looking for ,I got a lot of hard to find clean maple staves that way , tell them your picky about what you buy a lot of those guys do mill work and have access to wood thats not listed ! A lot of those sellers are nice guys and willing to hunt down what your looking for !

[YosemiteSam]

Forwardhandle & Eric Krewson, thank you.