Walnut & hackberry

[Justin Snyder]

I think Pappy told me this when I was in Tennessee, but I cant remember.  Do you use the sapwood on walnut and hackberry?  Anyone ever use the heartwood of either?  Justin

[Badger]

    Walnut the sapwood is preferable but looks great with a sapwood back and heartwood belly. Hackberry you can use any part of the wood starting right under the bark, hackberry is the most bendable of all american woods if you want to get fancy and make some recurves, you can bend it into circles with a little steam. Steve

[Coo-wah-chobee]

                        Tough to get walnut(black) here. Most are cut down and sold for furniture. Had a small piece once didnt have much heartwood so I used sapwood. Was ok bow,IMHO eh ! Hackberry is in elm family but theres a coupla species, one is good one is not so good. Made one from sap n heartwood once, was a really nice hard hitting bow, JUstin...............bob

[Pappy]

What Badger said.You really have to keep Hackberry dry,kind of like you would treat Hickory
and tiller carefully it will get away from you fast.Exercise a lot between scraping before you move on.
   Pappy

[GregB]

I've only made one hackberry bow, but it turned out nice. It is really light in physical weight in your hand. Make sure you cut the limb thickness prior to floor tillering a little thicker then you would for osage or hickory. A finished hackberry bow 1-1/2" wide of a specific length and draw weight will be thicker with the finished bow then the same width osage or hickory bow of the same length and draw weight. At least that was my experience with the one I made.

So start out thick, and take it slow. Exercise the limbs a lot between scrappings like Pappy said.

[jcougar]

I've had good luck with hackberry and bad luck with walnut sapwood.  Hackberry makes a real nice bow, just don't go too fast in the tillering process or you'll end up with half the weight you wanted. 

[snedeker]

I made a nice one from walnut heart lumber backed with maple.   hackberry is the standard white wood deal where the sapwood is where its at.

Dave

[Justin Snyder]

Thanks guys, I think I will split the Hackberry to make some all sapwood and some 50/50 bows.  We didn't get a real consensus on the walnut,  any more thoughts. 
Pappy, I think I can manage dry.  It has been in the mid 90s all week and hasn't rained since before I came to Tennessee.     Justin

[Pat B]

I have never used Hackberry but I have made nice bow with BW sapwood...usually overbuilt. I did make an ELB style hickory backed BW that ended up fretting badly after a few shots.
   You have enough sapwood to get 2 or 3 piggy backs from that BW log.   Pat

[tom sawyer]

I also made a decent hickory-backed walnut heartwood bow (1/4-sawn).  So the heartwood will work at least as a belly.  Around here the walnut has pretty thick sapwood so if you were using under the bark as your back, you'd probably have an all-sapwood bow.  I don't know how it is to chase a ring, because the stuff is semi-ring porous so it will be a little different to try and follow a ring.

[Badger]

       Justin, all the trees in the hickory family inculding walnut are recomended to use sapwood, may of them work well either way though, Steve

[Justin Snyder]

Thanks guys, I really appreciate all the input.  I guess asking if the hackberry is sapwood is kind of silly. I have it all split up and I cant see that there is any heartwood in the log.  It is just one continuous white wood all the way from the bark to the core.  Maybe after it dries a little I will be able to tell the difference.  My camera battery is dead, so I will post some pictures tonight.  Justin

[tom sawyer]

Yeah its pretty white all the way through.  How did that big boy split anyway?  Have to use quite a few wedges or did it pop open easy for you?

[Pat B]

Lennie, With the dry conditions where Justin lives I'm surprised those logs didn't just pop open trying to get rid of the moisture.
Justin. How many staves did you get out of the load?   Pat

[Justin Snyder]

Lennie, it split beautiful. When Ron and I split it in half we were giggling like school girls because it went so easy.  I drove one of Pappy's big wedges in it and it cracked the entire 8'+  with the first wedge.  It did have a few stringers, but went pretty good.  After I got it home and unloaded the halves and let them sit for a while it was basically the same.  After I got half way on the walnut, it POPPED. Sounded like a giant bow exploding.  The bark on the walnut pulled off in huge sheets too. 

Pat, I haven't reduced it to single staves yet. I have only split each piece into 8 pieces. I expect I can get about 3 staves from each piece, (don't get greedy) so about 24 staves for the hackberry.  2 all sapwood staves per piece with the walnut and 1 50/50 sapwood heartwood per piece.  Ill count the staves and post some pictures tonight.  This of course is staves from 6 1/2' to 8' long.  It does not include the billets from the branches.   Justin