Having survived the whitewood wars, and being new and naive during that period, I have perhaps a different perspective than many folks seem to have. I didn't have enough experience at the time to have any real bias, if anything in favor of the WW side, and I think folks would judge me to be generally openminded. Please don't be offended any of you by my comments. I only hope my reputation will make you think about what I write, as I intend it sincerely for good, versus contraversy for sport.
My perspective is the whitewood proponents (predominantly one person with lots of followers) a) had an predisposition to be "right" regardless of the discussion, b) had a huge chip on their shoulder c) wanted to make a name for himself. As a consequence the method of argumentation used was largely logical fallacy, versus presenting "clean" science. Specifically, the idea that osage proponents discounted completely the use of whitewood was a straw man. Rather, proponents of osage judged it to be only "better." The rest was hyperbole by the WW side to counter, to discount, this inescapable reality. Now don't get me wrong, by better I don't mean on the one hand a score of 100 and the other a score of 1. More like 100 versus 99.9. And obviously context is very, very important, perhaps the only important aspect. But the fact remains, for most of us who hunt and live in a humid climate, who will make 10s or 100s of bow over a course of years for that purpose, those ho generally have easy access to it, bascially if you live on the East side of the Rocky mountains, osage is a better choice. Yes, WW works great in low humidty but so does osage. Yes, osage is more fragile in extremely low humidity, but only a few of us have that concern. Yes, there are cases where WW, even red oak boards from your local home center really are the best choice, but not the majority of cases. That I think was the argument promoted by the osage side. One not entertained seriously, honestly, by the WW side IMHO, for reasons which I think tend to not work in our favor over the long haul.
So, when one is tempted to think or promote the idea the osage side of the WW war had some insideous agenda to keep you from making bows of elm, please reconsider. In fact, folks on the osage side might well have made more elm bows than you have, and understood all to well it's strenghts, and weaknesses.
Sorry for the hijack. I reckon I got my stinger out a little. And for what it's worth, assuming one can control moisture content reasonable easily which is a given for most home crafters today, I'd much prefer good elm over osage to build an elb style bow of 80# or less.
