Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: kiltedcelt on May 04, 2010, 01:26:18 pm
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I just cut some mulberry down. Some of it is nearly 3 1/2" diameter while most of it is about 2 1/2" diameter. I was surprised at the amount of sapwood in all the stuff I cut. Most of it has at most only about 1 1/2" to maybe 1 3/4" heartwood. There's easily 1/2" of sapwood on pretty much all of what I cut. Can I leave some of that on? Say take it down and leave about 1/4" of sapwood maybe, or should I be going all the way down to the heartwood. If I have to go all the way down to the heartwood is it possible to even make bows from such a small core of heartwood? The maximum width of any bow I would make from the heartwood alone is probably going to be 1 1/2" or less. I don't shoot heavy bows - usually only up to about 40 -45# so maybe it's no problem. This is my first attempt using mulberry - any advice would be appreciated. Oh, by the way it's White Mulberry, not Red Mulberry. White being the species with the smoother reddish bark and heavily lobed leaves.
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i too have some mulberry thats mostly sap wood .i made a51in x1.5 flat bow it had quite a bit of re-flex in it. it shot great for a while then drew a little farther and it broke mid limb i suspect if i had backed it the bow would still be shooting todayby the way it was all sap wood and decrowned iam going to try again with a backing this time
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I've made all sapwood , 50/50 sap/heart and all heartwood mulberry bows all with good results. The all heartwood makes the best bow but leaving some sapwood on the back will work fine. Your bow will end up slightly thicker than an all heartwood bow. The more sapwood you use will increase the thickness but not hurt the bow's shootability.
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what pat said
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I've made a couple mulberry bows that had sapwood on them and shot good. I made an English longbow from mulberry last year and left three rings of sapwood on it to mimic the look of yew. It's a good shooter. Mulberry has to be a pretty good sized tree before it builds much sapwood, kind of like black walnut.