Help Choosing Ring

[Burnsie]

I've zeroed in on the ring right below the dotted line.
Which one would you choose?
I'm thinking about moving up 6-7 rings and saving myself some hassle going that deep.

[Mad Max]

I rotated the picture a little and cropped the picture down to the first thicker ring.

[Pat B]

Go to the first good, clean ring you come to. There is no need to do the extra work. How wide and deep is that stave?

[Burnsie]

The stave is:
5" wide
4" Deep
71" long

[Longcruise]

Looks like the one you ticked off is the first good one unless that check goes further than it appears to.

[Mad Max]

The bow could be on the left side of the 4" line about 8 rings up from his .........
It could be split on that 4" line also because it's 5" wide and have 2 staves.


You don't have to use the thickest ring in a stave.

[Pat B]

If it were mine...saying this from someone that has done this for many years, I'd split off the bottom 2" then on the top half I'd split it in half. This would give you 2 good staves and a possible 3rd if the bottom one split true. I would take each stave and work down to the first good, clean ring like I said above. Until you get each stave split and start reducing the back you don't know what you have. You won't know how bad the checks are until you get into each stave. Even with a check in the end and a few inches of the back you may still be able to place the bow outline on the stave to miss the checks. Also, checks aren't necessarily bad in a bow if handled properly.
 How is the back of the whole stave?
This is a bow I built for a friend that recovered a stave from an island in the Missouri River that he had cut 15 years earlier You can see how badly it was checked...

[Burnsie]

"If it were mine...saying this from someone that has done this for many years, I'd split off the bottom 2" then on the top half I'd split it in half. This would give you 2 good staves and a possible 3rd if the bottom one split true."

To split the bottom 2" off - what would be your preferred method?  Start a crack using a froe or a hatchet and work it on down? Or just start driving a wedge....or?

[Pat B]

I've used a wood chisel starting in the early wood above the ring you want as the back. Once you get that started a wedge or froe to work the crack down the stave. A froe is more controllable. Without seeing the stave personally you may or may not achieve this belly split successfully but you have very little to loose if it doesn't work.