Best Wood To Make A Bow
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 to make a bow. This means you need to make a laminate longbow. 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.
The authentic art of Indian bow-making is explained and illustrated by Al Herrin a Cherokee Indian in his book Cherokee Bows and Arrows. What kind of wood do you use to make a bow. Al prefers osage-wood above all others because of its.
The BEST wood for a recurve is a tie between Maple and Hickory. Its Latin name Juniperous Virginiana will make you understand that is actually a species of juniper. Find a piece of dry and dead but not gray or cracking hardwood such as oak lemon tree hickory yew black locust teak ash juniper or madrono about 18 meters about 6 feet or as tall as you may be in length.
Its strong compression and weak tension make it perfect for making English longbow designs with a D-shaped cross-section. Recurve bows can be made of several different woods including hickory yew Osage orange and lemon wood. There are a few things to consider when selecting raw wood for your bow.
The two most commonly used bow woods are Pacific yew and Osage orange. That said pretty much any hardwood including maple and oak will do the job. Ash is a ring porous hardwood and the early growth wood is coarse and stringy with the late growth wood being harder and stronger.
But what is the best wood for a recurve bow. When making a laminate longbow oak is a fantastic belly wood and also cheap compared to others. Soapwood is very good as is Black Wattle if youre careful tillering it and remove at least the first couple of layers of sapwood as they do tend to lift splinters.