Russian Olive Bow

[Hillbilly Deluxe]

Hey everyone-

   I actually had several questions all involving wood. First, I read that Elm makes a good bow wood. Around here all we have are Chinese Elm and I was wondering if these are also suitable? I harvested a tree the other day at my mom's house and was getting ready to split it into stave for next year. I thought that I had read one time about Elm that the sapwood is no good and that you should remove all of it when finally making the bow?

   The next piece of wood that I have I am not really sure what it is. I think that it could be Locust. Does anyone have any suggestions on sapwood vs. heartwood with this stuff.

   The Crown Jewel, or so I hope, of the logs that I collected is a good size piece of Russian olive. If you know anything about Russian olive than you know how hard it is to find a piece of it suitable to split into staves. I think that if nothing else it will make a really neat looking bow. It has about 1/8" of white sapwood and then the heartwood changes to a dark red color instantly afterwards.

   I was wondering if anyone had used any of this before or had any suggestions.

[M-P]

Hi Hillbilly,     Russian olive and chinese elm?  Sounds like you're out on the great plains.  I think you'll find that both can make decent bows.   I haven't used either yet, but others have stated that each can be treated as most white woods.  Just remove the bark and let the outer sapwood ring be your back.   Chinese elm ( and I assume you mean E. siberiensis) is lighter wooded than many other elms and should be made a little wider.  The wood may be a little weaker than the american and slippery elm staves I've used, but I bet it is still tough to split!  Here in CA Chinese elms are E. chinensis.  I haven't heard of, or seen any bows made from that species yet, but I suspect that it would work well too.
I know BCBull ocassionally cuts russian olive.  Maybe he'll give some of his observations.

Ron

PS I'm still looking for a russian olive stave to try.  If you get some extra staves and want to trade, give me a pm.