Black locust struggles

[bassman]

Yep, chase it down to the first good heart wood growth ring, trap the back,and belly heat treat. that is what worked best for me any how. No belly fretting so far on 4 of them,and I shoot them quite a bit. Makes a snappy bow.

[George Tsoukalas]

I think you may be in the situation where sapwood is changing to heartwood. By the way, that second photo may show a violated back...towards the right of the photo, Check it closely.

I agree go to an all heartwood ring.

Jawge

[Kidder]

I think you may be in the situation where sapwood is changing to heartwood. By the way, that second photo may show a violated back...towards the right of the photo, Check it closely.

I agree go to an all heartwood ring.

Jawge

The second photo is actually of a different piece on the belly side of a bound for burn pile piece I attached just to show what I incorrectly thought was spalting.
Either way - thanks to all for the input. I guess I need to suck it up and get to work!

[M2A]

I don't like to work those real thin rings if I have a better choice, its almost all early wood to my eyes. However sometime the saw does not cut a clean edge on the rings and makes it look different than it is. When I think that occurs I'll take a sharp tool to the end and make a clean cut to see things better.(and that looks like the case in your picture to me)   I would use one of those 6 rings near the .5" spot on your ruler if that was my piece of wood, provided I thought the rings were consistent from end to end. Good locust always seems stringy when removing to get to the ring I want, when I remove stuff like what i think i see it all seems to crumble when I take it off. For that reason I dont think its as good.

Sounds like your well on your way now though, so cool. If your in that fine stuff I'd suggest keeping it a little wider and longer than you may otherwise. Good luck on your build.
Mike               

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I’ve tried locust that looks like that with mixed results, there is a lot of early growth there for black locust. But still a good probablity of getting a good shooter. I agree with M2A, get to the first solid looking ring, leave it as wide as you can, trap the back, heat treat the belly well and maybe even silk or rawhide back it. With black locust I’ve gone up to 2” wide for a 50# bow and they still shoot well, so you can get that wide, I would.

Kyle