BOAM?

[mullet]

Has anybody ever heard of this wood? I picked up a 1947 Popular Mechanics magazine from 1947 at the Flea Market this morning. It was called What to Make and How to Make it. What caught my eye while thumbing through it was a section on how to make a takedown bow and broad head arrows. It mentions using four kinds of wood; Osage orange, Yew, Boam and Lemonwood.

I've heard of the rest but never heard of Boam. It's a pretty cool little magazine.

[HickoryBill]

BOAM??
Bow. Or. Arrow.Material
LOL

[mullet]

here's some pictures

[bubby]

that set of plans is the takedown, I used the plans they have for an alb for my first couple bows, got those same plans you have there eddie, then I found the ferrets board bow plans and really took to them

[bubby]

heck Eddie I googled it and nothing came up

[wildman]

Wikkipedia shows nothing!

[Don Case]

How many of you guys wear a white shirt, tie and an apron in the shop. I think Pop Mech was aimed at a different class.

[vinemaplebows]

I think it is another name for Lemonwood. I read the article, and yes I did see they also stated Lemonwood. The time period the most popular woods were osage, yew, and lemonwood. I remember (vaguely) the word Boam I think yrs ago the question was on stickbow, I could be mistaken. Ask Badger he may know, he spent time on stickbow.

VMB

[Crogacht]

Here is my research trail

This link will take you to a page in a Philadelphia medical dictionary which defines words for medicine, surgery, pharmacy and... botany

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=LS1AAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT138&lpg=PT138&dq=tree+species+boam&source=bl&ots=tK9YN1x6gm&sig=qOlVQoleKUtUMywvwPidHXLY5lY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=y4qTU8rrCYvYkQXBy4DgBw&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=tree%20species%20boam&f=false

If you google the scientific name it takes you to this:

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

Which is basically a subgenus of this (AKA "aria", from the same entry in the medical book):

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

So I would say it's basically a whitebeam. They are in the same family as apples, pears, plums etc, so probably make good bows. More closely related to Rowan.

Looking at my wood density spreadsheet I posted in the "How to" section, it gives a density of 611 - 672 kg/m3 for Sorbus aria. A bit denser than american elm.

OR "white boam tree" could be a typo for "white beam tree"

[bubby]

yep I think you are on to something crogacht, google whitebeam and a native british tree comes up, a fine grained hard white wood, where as google whiteboam  and a bunch of stuff about bombs comes up, got to be carefull or big bro will swoop down on you searching that

[Crogacht]

It says on one of the pages that is it hard, strong wood, so even if whitebeam is NOT boam, it is probably still good bow wood, given the related species

It is odd that it doesn't come up elsewhere, but I imagine a lot of stuff from 1800's doesn't come up online

[Zuma]

The only thing I noticed from the charts is BOAM requires
more stock to give the same punch.
Not much help but an interesting quest. lol
Zuma

[Marc St Louis]

This subject came up on stickbow several years ago.  Never did come to a conclusion

[chamookman]

Another COOL find Eddie ! Bob

[nclonghunter]

Bows Of Another Material.....

Maybe it just means "white wood" bows, such as hickory,etc.