HHB

[Marc St Louis]

My wife had an abo drumming group meeting last night and after bringing her there I drove down to an area I had not been to before.  The road was mostly uphill with very few houses and petered out to a cell tower station.  I stopped and went for a walk.  Lots of hardwoods including White Ash, Maple, Oak and some HHB but because the area had been logged over perhaps 40 or 50 years ago most of the HHB were not very big.  I did run across a few around 4 to 6 inches across and a the odd tree around 10" but most were quite twisted and gnarly.  I did find one that was decent and will go back to harvest it.  I took a picture of the nice one and a picture of one that has some serious spiral growth, I'm sure you guys will see the difference.

 

[osage outlaw]

Nice tree.  I wish I could find some HHB around me

[Pappy]

Yep that 2nd ones is nice one for sure.
   Pappy

[Marc St Louis]

That second tree is about 6" at the butt.  It has a couple knots on one side but it is pretty straight.  I walked for over an hour before finding that second tree.  I did come across a couple nice Elm but they were a bit small and I don't need any Elm right now

[mullet]

I wish we had HHB down here.

[Danzn Bar]

I wish we had HHB down here.

Ditto..................
DBar

[PEARL DRUMS]

Oh quit whining you guys, it's not that great of bow wood anyway. Marc will tell you that. Eddie get your butt up to Marshall and I'll give you some. Bill, you shoulda' asked

[Danzn Bar]

Oh quit whining you guys, it's not that great of bow wood anyway. Marc will tell you that. Eddie get your butt up to Marshall and I'll give you some. Bill, you shoulda' asked

Not really whining... just wish I had the trees to go out and get one myself from scratch.......if you know what I mean...but I'd be glad to be gifted one...  

[bowandarrow473]

I've wanted to work HHB for awhile but it's not at the top of my list.
However I would love to work some osage or yew as I have heard of their legendary bow qualities.
But I don't think that it is worth spending 60 or more dollars on a stave that I can equal with hickory or elm. Put some reflex in or heat treat and I'd imagine that my elm or hickory bows easily equal an osage bow.

[Marc St Louis]

This area I found is quite large and I didn't cover very much of it so I'm sure there are a few more trees out there that will be worth cutting.  It was getting late by the time I found that last tree.  Fortunately it's not far from the road.  It looks to be a good area for bow-wood.  The only downside is all the garbage people have been dumping up there

[mullet]

The best HHB I've worked came from Marc. I've never seen any straighter.

[dylanholderman]

come on now that first one isn't too bad there's a HHB in the park behind my house that has that much twist in about two feet of trunk

still i agree with you, i'd leave the first one and take the second

[Marc St Louis]

Why thank you Eddie.

That is 2' of trunk Dylan 

You can make anything you want with top quality Elm.

If you believe that Chris then you might as well give all your HHB to DBar, I'm sure he will take it off your hands

[Marc St Louis]

I went out and cut that tree yesterday.  I brought my little buck saw with me and figured I would be able to cut it down easily enough with its 2' long blade.  It's been awhile since I last cut some HHB and I had forgotten how hard it is.  Took me 40 minutes to get the tree on the ground and another 20 minutes to cut 2 logs out of it, man was I tired.  Won't do that again, getting too old to be cutting them by hand anymore.  There's not a lot of bow wood in the second log I cut out of the tree but the first 6' is good.

[PEARL DRUMS]

That top picture of the log on the right, that's a beauty Marc. You could always slat some of the less desirable stuff up and make backed bows. I meant to cut more this season, but didn't.