Osage Sap Wood

[Josh Wilson]

I was discussing with two bowyers leaving the sapwood on the back on an osage longbow. One bowyer said in his experience that the sap wood was brittle and cracked, the other bowyer had had great results leaving the sap wood on. What are everyone else's experiences with this?

[Weylin]

I have no personal experience but I can say that I have seen plenty of excellent osage bows with sapwood on them.

[Bryce]

I've been told by an old osage bowyer that the sapwood is dead weight. And that the heartwood can do the tension and compression work, and then some.
One with sapwood and one without....still 2 different pieces of wood.
With probably 2 different designs and 2 different shooters.

[blackhawk]

It depends on the stave and how it was cared for.

[toomanyknots]

Dead weight?, lol. If anything it is probably a bit less weight than the heartwood. I know it is just fine in tension. I have never made a sapwood bellied bow, so I can't attest to it's compression strength,  . If there is any detriment, it might not have as high a recovery as heartwood, but that is just a guess on my part. The sapwood backed bows I have made have held there reflex just as well as heartwood bows.

[Josh Wilson]

It depends on the stave and how it was cared for.

Can you elaborate on this?

[Pat B]

If the wood is cared for properly after harvest the sapwood can be used on the back. I have made osage bows that were all sapwood, just sapwood backing, 50/50 heart/sap and all heartwood. All made very good bows but the more sapwood the thicker the limbs will be.

[BowEd]

Sometimes staves of hedge will have portions of bark missing or knocked off by equipment etc.this exposed sapwood will check a lot and sometimes deeply if exposed to sun or too fast of drying.If I wanted to do a sapwood backed bow I would either use a stave that dried naturally with its' bark on intacked or remove the bark to a ring of sapwood and shellac or varnish the heck out of its' back and ends and dry it inside a shed out of the wind in the shade.Taking care of the stave.

[Josh Shuck]

I agree.  I think the osage sap wood is like whitewoods and deteriorates quickly.  I know two people who tried and proudly proclaimed it was possible to use the sap wood.   Both broke about a month later...  I can't vouch for how it was treated though.

[George Tsoukalas]

I take off the sapwood on BL and osage unless there isn't enough heartwood. I've been doing this bow making thing for a long time. Someone always has a "revolutionary" idea that challenges accepted practices. If I made bows for a living I'd sure try to convince myself sapwood is as strong as heartwood, too, considering the extra work involved in ring chasing. LOL. IMHO caveat emptor. I sure would not buy an osage bow with sapwood on it no matter the need to leave it on. Now want me to tell you what I really think? :)Jawge

[toomanyknots]

I take off the sapwood on BL and osage unless there isn't enough heartwood. I've been doing this bow making thing for a long time. Someone always has a "revolutionary" idea that challenges accepted practices. If I made bows for a living I'd sure try to convince myself sapwood is as strong as heartwood, too, considering the extra work involved in ring chasing. LOL. IMHO caveat emptor. I sure would not buy an osage bow with sapwood on it no matter the need to leave it on. Now want me to tell you what I really think? :)Jawge

Heck, I've sold 3 sapwood backed osage bows, and never had one complaint,  . George, I have boatloads of respect for you and your experience that dwarfs mine own and I sincerely mean that, so please don't take this the wrong way, but I have to disagree with your view on osage sapwood. I have made short heavier weight osage bows that have ended up chrysaling on the belly, which to me seems to takes a bit of work to do, and yet the sapwood has never failed on me.

I agree.  I think the osage sap wood is like whitewoods and deteriorates quickly.  I know two people who tried and proudly proclaimed it was possible to use the sap wood.   Both broke about a month later...  I can't vouch for how it was treated though.

White woods like hickory, hophornbeam, elm, etc? There's plenty of white woods that are excellent bow woods, and I don't think anyone finds the term word "white wood" a dirty wood. I will say that it will check very soon if you don't seal it as soon as you take the bark off. Larger staves as well as staves with knots are more likely to check as well. I split my osage almost always on the knots if I can, and split the staves out so that they are small enough not to check, but still have enough meat on them not to warp. I also slowly dry my staves inside my house. And if a stave is small enough and clean enough, sometimes I won't even seal the back, as it will most likely not check. But this is of course the exception, and usually pretty narrow staves, or scrap staves. I guess seasoning osage staves with the bark off and the sapwood on is not the easiest thing to do. But once the staves are seasoned, the sapwood has always worked for me when used as the back of a bow. Just throwing all that out there,  .

[Josh Shuck]

Toomany, I might have not been specific enough...  When I said deteriorates quickly I mean left to the elements.  It's been my experience that whitewoods like elm, hickory and ash will start to deteriorate in a very short amount of time if left to the elements.  With osage people don't generally worry about how long it's out in the elements...all fine and dandy until you try to use the sapwood,  inmho.

[JonW]

I think it works fine.

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,26379.msg354408.html#msg354408

[George Tsoukalas]

toomanyknots, I know. It's ok to disagree about this. I thank you for the kind words.  Jawge

[okie64]

Ive only made one osage bow with the sapwood on and it worked out fine. Like others have said if the stave is well taken care of and is in good shape with no discoloration on the sapwood it will work. If theres enough heartwood theres really no reason to leave it on, just my opinion. The one I built with sapwood was from a limb without enough heartwood to make weight.