Bow Making Wood

[DankyKay]

Im new to bow making, and was wondering if there is any good bow wood near my location (central coast, NSW) as im eager to get started on a bow with atleast some decent wood for bow making

I appreciate your feedback,
Daniel.

[hunterguy1991]

Hi Daniel, Welcome to the Forum!

Do a search and you will find countless threads on timber for beginners mate! Heaps of different options for different styles of bows.

Colin

[Gringa Bows]

Welcome to Ozbow

[cmoore]

Hi Daniel welcome to Ozbow

My advice would be to get yourself to Masters and buy up a decent amount of red oak boards (if they still stock it that is!). If they have none in stock I would suggest buying a board of spotted gum and a piece of pole bamboo (about 6 inches in diameter) to use as a backing on the spotted gum, there's plenty of threads on bamboo backed bows and they are an excellent place to start

[DankyKay]

Thanks for the reply.
By saying a decent amount of boards are you suggesting that I glue them together or just have other boards as back ups?

[cmoore]

You'll want a few boards on hand as back ups, another thing when selecting your boards is to choose the ones that have the straightest grain throughout their length, the picture of the board on the right is the ideal grain you're looking for in a red oak board

images(7).jpeg (13.86 KiB) Viewed 4560 times

[DankyKay]

Oh right I see what you mean. On a video I was watching the bowyer said you need a strong growth ring as the face to maximise strength. Would the second oak in that image be okay since the ring are on an angle?

[Nezwin]

Oh right I see what you mean. On a video I was watching the bowyer said you need a strong growth ring as the face to maximise strength. Would the second oak in that image be okay since the ring are on an angle?

A single growth ring on the back of the bow is desirable when working with staves cut from trees. When working with easily available boards you can either work the board down to a single, uniform growth ring or you can use quarter-sawn or rift-sawn examples like cmoore showed in his post. The important thing is that the late/early growth structure of the back of the bow isn't in a 'configuration' that will pull apart under loading. If you think of the darker rings as glue lines and imagine the bow bending, try to imagine if that glue line would break. I've not had any luck with native timbers using this approach, but I am informed others have.

The earliest bows were built in such a way that the back had grain running from tip to tip (quarter or rift sawn)- it wasn't until later in the piece (around the Bronze Age, I believe, although there was a bit of a crossover period) that bowyers began using the natural face of the tree as the back of the bow.

Welcome to the board & the best of luck! Please post your bows - whether they are a success or not so - in the Traditional Crafts forum. It's always good to see how other people tackle the art.

[DankyKay]

Thanks heaps for your help. I'll be sure to post my bows and my progression.

- Daniel

[greybeard]

Daniel welcome to Ozbow,

Are you planning to make a bow out of split billets or milled boards?

Having the same timber in both formats can yield very different results.

The choice of timber will dictate the style of bow, or if you want a particular bow style you will have select a suitable timber.

As a general rule it is suggested that the nock to nock length of a selfbow should be double the draw length plus 20%. I do not know if the rule was worked on split billets only or if it included milled boards.

When using milled boards diffuse-porous may be a better choice than ring-porous. I believe that grain run off in ring-porous boards can be more problematic than grain run off in diffuse-porous boards.

“If you are contemplating using Aussie hardwood flooring, consider the following;

• Select grade has a minimum number of knots, sap streaks and other characteristics. It is straight grained and uniform in appearance.
• Standard grade has a varied appearance, with knots, sap streaks, burls and other distinctive characteristics.
• Character grade can best be described as rustic in appearance.

These grades do not say anything about the quality or durability of the timber. They are meant to be a guide to the aesthetic suitability of a timber. Select grade timbers are ideal for modern, minimalistic interiors while character grade may be perfect for a mountain top chalet.”

In the meantime do as much research as possible. There are some excellent bow making videos on the internet.

The central coast covers a large area so if you have any saw mills in your area you may be able to get some outer flitches from the logs that they process.

Do you have a reasonably well equipped workshop or will you be relying on basic hand tools.

Daryl.

[DankyKay]

My dad is a carpenter so he has a few tools of his own, although I have a limited space to work in. I was thinking of going to Bunnings/masters and checking out their red oak and spotted gum boards. I am extremely new to this craft so a lot of the terms you use are quite foreign to me haha.

Thanks for the reply
- Daniel