Bird Cherry also known as Hackberry as bowmaterial

[Martin Wallgren]

I have started an experimental project making a 100# WB out of Bird Cherry also known as Hackberry. Does anyone have any experience with Hackberry? I imagine I have to heatreat it a bit. So far I´m only in the stage of a rough cut of the stave. The wood has a quite destinct difference between the sapwood and the heartwood. The heartwood seems simillar to Ash in dencity and feel when I work it.

Futher on I post some pictures of the project.

[okie64]

Im not a warbow guy but I have built a couple of hackberry bows around 55- 60# or so. It makes a very fast, smooth shooting bow. It is soft, light wood that does need to be heat-treated to keep from taking too much set. I am very interested to see how this warbow turns out so keep us posted on your progress. Good Luck

[Agincourtwarbow]

A buddy of mine made a beautiful Hackberry warbow last year of about 100lbs. Quite big in mass, it seems to preform similarly to elm with distance. I can't tell you much about working the wood as I have never made anything with it myself, but it is at least good up past 100lbs.
Hope this helps, cheers,
-Jake

[DarkSoul]

Bird cherry is not the same as Hackberry. Not at all. The two wood species have very different characteristics. Can you post the scientific name of the wood you're talking about? If you have no clue, you could post a close-up of the  wood so we can identify it.

[}|{opukc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_padus

[Hrothgar]

Martin, I believe there are 2 different tree families called hackberry. Your Bird Cherry is classified as a 'prunus padus', along with other common cherry trees. The common hackberry is hard wood, and until recently was classified with the elms. However a few years back it was reclassifed in the hemp family 'cannabaceae', and genus 'celtis occidentalis' ( at least here in the middle part of the USA). This second mentioned hackberry is the tree often used in bow making, with characteristics similiar to elm--i.e. interlocking grain. It is fairly light in weight like a light weight ash; the trunk is usually very straight, and can reach 90 feet in height. This wood is creamy white with yellow streaks on occasion.

[Martin Wallgren]

The wood I´m trying is from the tree that is called Prunus padus in Latin. In swedish it is Hägg. It can grow to around 60 feet here in Sweden and is covered in white flowers in the spring. The flowers looks like white Lilacs but it´s a tree not a bush like the Lilac.

So far I just had it roughcut and have started to shape it a little bit. Have like a million projects going this week getting ready for the competition in Söderköping next weekwend with the CoSS. But after that I´ll get on with the bow and I will take pictures of the process!

[kurogane_84]

Too many knots roughed out a stave for me from hack berry and it lookto work on it till i have any s beautiful,  im waiting to get more experience then work on the big piece