The woods I have worked so far in my little over 2 years of bowyery are: Ash, Osage, Red oak, Hackberry, and em just starting a little bit on mulberry. Out of those woods hackberry has by far been the best wood period. Osage has taken the least set, but doesn't beat hackberry by that much. I live outside cincinnati ohio and I have heard alot of folks on here say that bow wood can vary [igreatly[/i] depending on region as well as growing conditions, and even greatly from just tree to tree. So you should take that into account. Things going for hackberry:
- Very few knots
- Very tension strong (in my own experience, haven't really looked into "official scientific" stuff)
- Takes little set after good seasoning. Norm for a 70" or so 70# at 28" bow would be about 1/2" for me.
- Light weight but at the same time strong. It seems that dense woods are desired mostly, but if the wood acts like a dense low set
taking wood with the added benefit of being light, I would see that as a performance plus. Now it will take more wood to make the same weight bow of other woods typically. But because of the lightness of the wood performance will not suffer like you'd think. It's strong but light. I know this seems like a catch 22, but if you take 2 50# bows of the same design, one hackberry and one probably any other common bow wood, the hackberry is gonna be way lighter. Anyway, this is just my opinion.
- Grows straight alot of the time.
- Polishes to ivory or bone likeness. Beautiful wood.
Or maybe I am just partial a little bit,
