Be careful what you wish for?

[Lucasade]

I just spent three months getting permission to cut this elm, but having cut it I'm worried about what's going on in the middle. Have I just spent a lot of effort finding some firewood?

[Del the cat]

No problem!
It's naive to think trees grow with symmetrical concentric circular growth rings!
It looks great to me.
Although maybe you should ship it to Harlow just to be safe
Just spend some time thinking about where to split it for best symmetry of staves.
that left side will have a nice tin layer of sapwood so it will have that cool Yew sap/heart appearance.
There are some pics of my Elm Warbow on this post, it shows the heart and sap wood...
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/how-to-smash-horsebow.html
Del

[Lucasade]

I wasn't worried about the non concentric rings (that yew stave I put up a while ago split perfectly through all the funny bits) but the dark boundary between the sap and heart wood?

Shipping it to Harlow would probably be my wife's preferred option 

[Del the cat]

can't see what you are referring to... maybe a close up?
Your wife is obviously a woman of great discernment
Del

[adb]

Looks fine to me. Should be at least 4 staves there. Have fun splitting it... it's elm!!

[Marc St Louis]

I cut an Elm about 10 years ago that looked a bit like that, relatively thin sapwood and very dark heartwood.  It was all pretty well useless as bow wood.  I'm not saying this is what you have though

[AndiE]

Hi

We never use the core of an elm, only sapwood. You can take the piece with the thicker sapwood for one or two great warbows and the rest is firewood.

Kind regards
      Andi

[mikekeswick]

I've used many elms like that. The heartwood is superior in compression. I think it will be fine. I probably wouldn't split it. I also wouldn't be trying to get more than one stave out of it, if I got more than one great but all my effort would be concentrated on getting one beauty out of it(the reflexed side). If you fancy a trip up north anytime I could show you a place where there are hundreds of elms upto 8 inches that you could cut with no problems.

[Lucasade]

That sounds good Mike - this is about as big as Elm gets in ths part of Warwickshire as far as I can tell.

I've had another look at it and the boundary between sap and heartwood doesn't seem to have such a dark layer as I remember any more. I guess I'll find out when I start working it if it's any good or not.

[Yeomanbowman]

I agree with Mike that the heart wood is tough under compression but all sap is fine too.  It's about density foremost.

[Lucasade]

Finally got around to splitting this last night - nearly 6 months since I cut it and it was sprouting in my shed!

Assuming there's enough meat on it there's a lovely warbow stave from the reflexed side (the one that's got a valley running down it in the pics), and I think I'll spilt the other bit again to get two staves. If it keeps this heartwood/sapwood contrast (and the wood's good, it all works as planned, etc) it should make some really pretty bows.

[WillS]

Well done! Cracking looking staves.  Best of luck with the bows.  How's your hazel warbow coming along?

[Lucasade]

Ready to tiller - I need to make a string and I've got a 100kg scale coming my way as a birthday present from my parents in law next month. I thought in the meantime I should start turning some of the logs in my shed into staves before they split themselves!

[Del the cat]

Very nice Heart/Sap contrast. (jealous)
I've just started working a stave which goes from Honey coloured heart to straw coloured sap 
Mind I've just finished one from the same batch of wood, poor heart/sap definition... I was expecting it could be a poor performer and a bit soft. Nope. it held some reflex and shoots fast.
Del