ERC questions

[Deerhunter21]

So I know for a fact where to find ERC but the problem is the branches. If I were to harvest it I would have to take the branches off and that would make a lot of knots. Does ERC grow big enough that there is wood at the bottom with no branches like other trees? how long should I season it? Is it a good wood for a beginner? how should I work it? thanks!

[Pat B]

You want ERC clear, no knots. 
If you can back it with a hard backing, hickory, maple, elm, you can get away with more defects but not much.
 Make the bow 66" to 68" long, 1 1/2" to 1 3/4" wide at the fades and out 8" or so before tapering to 1/2" tips for now. You can narrow thew tips after you see how the string tracks at brace.

[peacefullymadewarbows]

What Pat B said is smart and maybe best for a beginner because it'll help guarantee against breakage. If you can find ERC growing either in very dense thickets or in the understory of a very mature hardwood forest you can find whole trunks that are clear for 7-8 feet. I've harvested a few like this and that is how I found them. In dense thickets go for the trees in the center or look for trees that grow with Y splits. The inner face of that Y split will have no branches because of its buddy right up against it. Same for thickets. The trees have no sunlight down near the trunks because of all the trees surrounding it closely so there is no impetus for branches to grow low. Similar reasoning for those in the understory of hard wood forests. The hardwoods tend to get taller faster and may have been there in the first place. So the cedar tree has always had to strive for sunlight straight up getting the seconds left over after passing through the mottled openings in the hardwood canopy... there will be few to no branches in the lower trunk of these individuals. Hope this helps. All things considered you can get away with a couple knots of up to 1cm diameter. Also, if you are smart with planning where the bow sits in the stave you can very often make a knotty stave yield a nearly knot free bow. Hope this helps.

[gutpile]

clear erc is rare but available..I have a few clear staves now..been drying about 6 years... I built a sinew backed bow. 60" 52@28 and she screams... very light in hand..super soft wood .. tilled with sandpaper so soft.. easily dings so be careful on back..... cedar is a great bow wood.. as long as its backed.. tension isn't that good ... will violently explode.. compression is as good as it gets..gut

[gumboman]

I found a large diameter ERC tree that has been down for years. No branches for the entire length of its 8 foot long trunk section. I cut a six foot length out that was about 12 inches in diameter and split it into staves. After inspecting the staves I came to the conclusion that this wood is not good for bows. It is light weight and brittle. Could be this is due to it laying on the ground for years. Not sure. The log was solid with virtually no rotten or bad spots for the entire circumference. It is very light in weight and decided I did not want to spend my time fooling with it. Could be because I was also harvesting osage the same day and the difference in weight and toughness between the woods is astounding. Osage being much denser and tougher of course.

Was I too quick to eliminate the ERC? It just seems light, brittle and delicate for bow wood.
 

[peacefullymadewarbows]

Deerhunter- Oh my. I forgot to address drying. It's a low density wood so it dries very fast. I just made a bow from a fully seasoned ERC stave about 2 weeks ago from a tree that was cut on January 21. The key is to split it up into staves that will be for one bow a piece (this was a big tree and initially split into quarters they were huge so split into 8ths for that size) Let those sit bark on for about 2-3 weeks. Then go ahead and rough out your bow and let that sit for two weeks and you should be bone dry. This is all stated assuming a climate controlled building. Six months at any size should be plenty.

gumboman- Your sap wood was probably shot but the heartwood was probably still OK. Especially with handling osage in the same day ERC is going to seem like balsa wood. What I have found is that from tree to tree you might get wood too brittle to make a selfbow while others will make a selfbow just fine. "Good" ERC is probably on level with "poor" yew to me. I made a self war bow from a marginal ERC stave while back that held up great for 150 shots then out of the blue exploded at partial draw. That bow felt like balsa wood in the hand and because of this it was a screamer but obviously it was not long for this world because of how brittle it was. Right now I have a much shorter one sitting on 200 shots with out budging and this one is from a little more ring dense tree which makes me think it is more durable wood. So, in the end you are kind of gambling with ERC. Good ERC is out there and makes what I believe to be a pretty good selfbow especially because it is very fast wood and so beautiful. But you never know when it's going to blow and it's impossible to tell wood quality just by looking at it. Backing it turns pretty much all ERC into a zippy durable bow that is beautiful to look at. I would highly recommend trying it as its easy to work smells good and is really rewarding when one stays in one piece.

[Mafort]

I worked cedar into a few bows that were low In draw weight and unbacked. Reading TBB it said that ERC is actually a juniper. Everyone here knows juniper works well with sinew. Last one I made I made sure to burnish the belly very heavily and backed it with sinew. It was cow from a slaughter house here in Kentucky. It’s very fast and quite zippy. You can try a static recurve with it and then back it. Supposedly it works but I’ve never done it

[gumboman]

What if I were to saw a stave of this ERC into bow shape on my band saw. Saw the back of the stave flat and back it with a glued on bamboo lamination that has the nodes ground off. I have these ground bamboo lams from my days way back when I made laminated bows. Then tiller and finish a bow. I wonder if this would hold up. Does anyone have experience with this combination.

I also have some old osage boards I can do the same thing with. Has anyone tried backing osage that has been sawed flat with bamboo? Sawing it would cut across the growth rings of course.

I'm looking for a way to get a bow made for hunting with this fall while my newly harvested osage seasons. All my staves are still green.

[Pat B]

You'd be better off taking the osage down to floor tiller stage, strap it to a 2x4 to dry. in a few months you could build a bow. When was the osage harvested?

[gumboman]

The osage was harvested first of March this year. I have one snakey stave I have taken down to about 1-3/4 inches wide by 3/4 inches thick. Have bark and sapwood removed and applied polyurethane to back and painted the ends. It is stored in my basement where temperatures are stable around 55 to 70 degrees.

I also have the osage boards that are 25 years old and would like to utilize those in a backed bow where I can saw out the bow profile with a flat back and glue on bamboo or some other backing.

I know doing this would violate many rules to primitive bow making but I might take the risk anyway and see what happens. Should not take too much effort to try it out.

[Bayou Ben]

The bamboo used for laminations will not be good for a backing.  You want your backing to be the part right under the rind, where the "power fibers" lie, or put another way, the outside raw part of the boo. 
You have choices.  You can do like Pat suggest and make a selfbow, or if you have raw bamboo you can back those osage boards or back the ERC like you intended.  Or back it with maple or hickory. 

[ohma2]

Erc will make a great bow,if you ever get your hands on a well made one you will be one happy camper.as stated above ,find a thicket and the ones that are growing close together will be clean on there inner sides.
its true though that when they break they break big time.you want healthy sap wood for sure thats where the its virtues come from.

[gumboman]

Thanks for the feedback all. Since I will need sapwood for the ERC, the staves I have will not work. They are from a tree that was downed years ago.

[TimBo]

You can still back the heartwood, assuming it is in good shape. 

[Springbuck]

What if I were to saw a stave of this ERC into bow shape on my band saw. Saw the back of the stave flat and back it with a glued on bamboo lamination that has the nodes ground off.

Gumboman, you called it right.  This is word for word THE recommended treatment for ERC and juniper.  I have seen some ERC sefbows, but usually it's longbows or long, fairly narrow flatbows, backed with bamboo, hickory, etc..   It's a great combination.  Most suggest a thin backing (1/8" or less) and a thick belly lam to start.   We do see some of short, wider sinew-backed bows, patterned after Plains-style or West Coast bows.

Junipers have a reputation for poor tensile strength, and they are not stiff woods, but despite their light weight they have pretty good ELASTICITY in compression.  When backed, they will tolerate a narrower, deeper design.

It sounds like you have used bamboo before, but I would warn against grinding down the nodes flat.  That angles through lots of fibers.  I try to thin them well on the UNDERSIDE, but only lightly scrape or sand over the nodes themselves, just enough to take that little lip off and smooth it over.  Tiller around the stiff, raised spots like it's a raised knot or whatever.

I have only made a couple ERC bows.  First was a basic pecan-backed, shorter longbow (thick as it was wide) and that bow came together really easily.  Then I made a flatbow that came in way under weight. I didn't start with enough thickness.  Then, I failed at another longbow I wanted to back with slabs cut from the surface of a small elm (for character).  The ERC was from the up-side of a leaning tree next to a house, knot-free, but VERY lightweight with wide rings.  It just didn't have the strength for a narrow bow, and also turned out to have really bad hairpin wiggle to the grain.

Hope that helps.