Sequoia for bow wood?

[hatcha]

A question that stemmed from a pic I found on Fecesbook of a felled sequoia tree about a hundred years ago...

Cameroo pondered the number of possible bows available from the tree and I got to wondering...  Is "Giant Redwood" any good for bow wood?  Has anyone here ever dabbled in it before?

[Newindian]

It's in the cypress family so maybe

[Bryce]

I would think that the old growth branches would be better bow material than the trunk.

-Pinecone

[Zion]

If you get  a compression-side branch, the strength of the wood would be much higher than the trunk, as Bryce said. Also, if you made a tension/compression branch laminate, it might act something like Yew wood, which has these two characteristics in the natural heartwood and sapwood. If you have any available, i would experiment!

[YosemiteBen]

Keep in mind that there are two species of trees in this category.  Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) makes a great lumber wood and is still used heavily on the coastal areas due to it environmental tolerances. Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) has short wood fibers, is terrible for making lumber, is very heavy and maintains a high level of compression in all of its members.  A friend was cutting a limb for making a polains style flute and the wood pinched his saw as he cut through it.  So I would maintian that it wouldn't be any good for making a bow. The Indians that lived where the Squoias grow in the Sierra used Juniper and cedar for their bows.  I have an article on Miwok sinew backed bows if you want a copy.

[Bryce]

Wish I had more info. I have a couple branch staves in my stash. The wood seems brittle, so it would need sinew or rawhide backing. If it was to work. But in that area juniper or yew would have been the favored choice.

-Pinecone

[rossfactor]

I'd say that any sequoia species ( Redwood or Giant Sequoia) would be about the worst possible bow wood.  Please prove me wrong if you want to, but I'd say that the heart wood its about as weak in tension as you can get.  Its a low density, low elasticity wood. Great for lumber, very rot resistant, and probably relatively strong in compression.  Id say it would be as bad as most pines and worse than most cypress for bow wood.

Gabe