Casuarina (Australian Pine/She-oak) possibilities?

[rabbitassasin]

Hello,
im just wondering i have two staves drying about 70" long, quite crowned, 2.5inches wide and probably and inch thick of workable wood once roughed out, ive seen that this can be made into a bow so would something like a 60-65# @29 inch bow be feesable with this wood or would somethign around 50lbs work better and what type of cross section? would just flat be best? so far the wood i have very few knots on the back and no twist but a bit of relfex
thanks

[Parnell]

I made several when I was starting out.  It will make a bow.  It's funny wood though, and can tend toward chrysaling.
Don't even worry about the back, you could deliberately make marks in the back and I doubt it would matter.  On a scale of 1-10 for interlocked wood grain that stuff is a 10.  I've made some sapling bows out of it that performed really well.  Mullet spent time on one and it chrysaled.  Go figure.

It's extremely dense.  Doesn't like to be reflexed outside of it's natural shape...because of all that lattice, it will splinter there.  Hopefully you cut it from trees that didn't twist.  Even though they may be straight if the "grain" twists it isn't as good.  I believe that wood has potential to make an excellent bow, though.