Interesting Wood - Could be a Mystery

[GraemeK]

Hi All - Thought you might be interested in this timber.

Common name is -  Grey Myrtle or Iron wood

Botanical name is - Backhousia myrtifolia

It is a small hardwood of coastal rainforrests of northern New South Wales and southern Queensland - usually up to 25' tall with a trunk diameter of no more than 8". Tends to grow along creek lines in well drained areas.
Not a commercial species due to small size and low numbers but has been used in past for a couple of particular things - wagon wheel spokes and tool handles. It is extremely dense - GD 1100kg/m3  ADD 1020kg/m3  and difficult to dry. It is  unusual in that it is low in moisture when green ( only about 7% ) and this seems to make it more difficult to dry rather than easier.

I have as yet not finished a bow from it but I am encouraged to try as I met an old guy in a bush timber mill ( he was about 85 ) who told me that during the depression he and his brothers used it to make bows to hunt rabbits because they had nothing else to eat and they could not afford bullets ---( I guess it worked OK as he obviously did not starve) He told me that they started out just cutting branches of things and using these as cut from different plants but when they found how well the Ironwood worked they started to make better and more sophisticated bows until eventually they were using long bows of the flat bow style that drew 50# or more which enabled them to hunt larger animals like kangaroos.
This is the only account of anyone hunting with a bow in Australia in the previous generations that I have ever personally come across so I am keen to see how well it works.

The timber shown in the photos was cut nearly a year ago and most of the logs were debarked, split into two, coated all over with   PVA, tied back into pairs with a spacer in between then wrapped with kitchen wrap and dried in a cool place which seems to have worked well. The log used for the bow blank has been left with bark on for the year then cut down to the bow blank but it has become apparent that it had dried very little so it will be a while before I can do more on it

Graeme

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[MattE]

The picture showing you debarking a log .looks like what we call scrub oak.....If it will make a spokes for a wagon wheel and tool handles it will make a good bow.

[GraemeK]

Hi Matte
My feeling exactly re the other uses.

Any idea of the botanical name of the timber you mentioned  -----  Graeme

[MattE]

Never thought of it? It is a trash wood. Farmers find them growing on ditches and despise them.The tree doesn't get big enough for timber , just like the tree in your picture.

[Justin Snyder]

It looks like it has potential to me.  I don't know about grey myrtle, but there have been bows posted of other myrtle types on here.  Justin

[Badger]

has very pronounced vertical grain as you often see with hop hornbeam also called iron wood. Is it related to the hornbeams?  Steve

[GraemeK]

Hi Badger
The pattern on the surface is kind of strange and seems to have more to do with the way the bark grows than anything else. It does not seem to have anything to do with the grain which is very straight and fine. The family that it belongs to is Myrtaceae which includes about 300 species but not many are native to America they include clove, guava, feijoa, allspice, and eucalyptus. I guess the thing you would be most familiar with would be Guava.

Graeme