Best Wood For Bows
These hardwoods are common enough to be inexpensive and most importantly have the best durability and ideal flex snappiness needed for a recurve bow.
Best wood for bows. But what is the best wood for a recurve bow. Yew is typically regarded as the best wood for making longbows. Offers an alternative to the use of Pernambuco wood a wood typically used for violin bows which is now endangered.
Hickory tolerates more wood run than any wood Ive ever come across and it has a strong tension that makes the perfect backing. In addition to yew osage orange Southern red cedar apple and white ash pine wood also make excellent bows. Two important characteristics determine the suitability of wood for bow making.
I dont know the MOE or MOR of the wood but it will flex and return to its original shape better than the ones I have made from hickory hard maple and Pacific Yew. A straight Spotted Gum sapling makes a good bow if you keep the belly flat otherwise it will chrysal. However as individual bowyers have their own preferences some choose to make longbows from white oak red oak hickory red elm American elm Osage orange or rock maple instead.
There are many types of wood that make great recurve bows like osage orange bamboo red oak hickory ipe eastern redcedar dogwood and most hardwoods like oak and maple. Monticola so it may not reflect an accurate picture of any one particular species of the grouping that is referred to as Madagascar Rosewood. Yew wood has all the characteristics you are looking for in a good bow.
Like bamboo it has a very strong tinsel strength so to make a bow it needs to be thin. What kind of wood do you use to make a bow. Flexible woods are needed for these types of bows since it must be able to arch back without breaking.
If you are interested in making laminated longbows typically the right quality of hickory maple and ash will back bows and there are numerous core woods that can be used including purpleheart greenheart satinwood and pau amorello to name a few. Best Wood for Bows. Ash hickory cedar juniper oak walnut and birch are all fairly common woods that will create a solid yet flexible bow.