Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: kayakfisher on January 26, 2008, 01:22:59 pm
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I bought some white pine the other day to do some long over due honey do chores. When I got home I noticed how perfect the grain is in this piece of wood.As I sit here and type this I am asking myself exactly what purpose did I by this particular board. { Help Ive been infected with bow building Disease]It is the text book example for board stave's however you never hear of pine bows.
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Some early European mesolithic speciments and American SW prehistoric bows are of pine. The one guy in Bowyers Bible Ii talks about making one, but it has to be about 3" wide.
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Your pine board isn't bow wood, but straight-grained white pine makes excellent arrows. That's why you bought it. ;D
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White pine is really brittle compared to other conifers. Unfortunately one of the best pines for bow wood was ripped form us during WWII: Scots Pine happens to be an awesome tough wood, especially it's heart wood. Now days in North America it grows like a banzai tree, all twisty and messed up. What happened was back in the day, the gov'ment wanted to propagate it as a lumber wood because it's such an outstanding lumber tree, but the people who were gathering seed for the process of propagating the species got lazy and duh, gathered the easy cones... From the short goofy trees. Hence, we now have a bunch of scabby little trees thanks to a screwed up breeding program. In Europe, they didn't screw with the population and scots pines still grow in their proper form.. Tall, straight and usable for lumber or bows. As a climber for a tree service, white pines were fun because they get tall, but they are also kind of scary. I've actually taken a handsaw to a healthy branch on a take down, and with three quick swipes on the upper side, have had the branch crack and drop... With Scots Pines on the other hand, even with a face cut on the bottom side of a limb, we have to cut through almost every fiber with the back cut to make the branch come down. They are that tough.
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Thats very interesting information thanks,I learned something.
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Hmmm when you say scots pine do you mean scotch pine? All I see of them are Christmas trees.
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Pinus sylvestris, Scots Pine, Scotch Pine, same deal. Common names can trip ya up cause they aren't uniform. They were brought over here, and yup we see them as Christmas trees. Picture a big well shaped picture book pine tree.. That's what they should look like, and in Europe along with other places in their home range that's what they look like. John
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I forgot to add an important detail: The only thing I call scotch comes in a bottle. Everything else is Scots.
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;D ;D ;D
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Well I dont know done some research think there is a difference between Scot and Scotch pine enclosed photo of scot pine
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Didn't Comstock write something about one of the Neolithic European bow artifacts being made of Scots pine?
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Yes, he did. He said scotch pine was used before yew was growing in Europe.
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chris (my friend who won BOY/laminated category) told me about a guy he met latly how had made several nice bows from pine; i'll try to get more info, maybe pictures.
sami people from northern scandinavia made compositbows of pine compressionwood and birch.
frank
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the sami bows were from your average pine, but it did not grow in an average place or position. and they live also in finland and russia so not just scandinavia. anyway the wood that they used was pine indeed, but of a special sort, you see pine sucks in compression, but they used the type of wood that we call lyly mänty (mänty=pine). the tree had to grow on the shoreline of a lake, river, swamp etc. and it had to be growing "above" the lake. so it had to be tilted above the water naturally and not by human hands, and they used to take the stave from the water side of the tree.
I see that the species we have here and what the sami must have used is scots pine. (does not grow naturally in north america) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Pine
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Don't let common names trip ya up: If I said what is Ironwood, some guys would say Hop Horn beam. They would be right, but they would also be wrong because Ironwood is a common name that's used to describe Hop Horn Beam, Blue Beech, along with a bunch of other species. The deal with whether it's Scots Pine or Scotch Pine doesn't matter anymore than if you called it "Bob's Tree". To be accurate, use it's proper name: Pinus silvestri. It's a tree that isn't native to North America but it was brought over here just like dandelions or gypsy moths, stuff gets moved around. Another good example of getting confused over tree species is the cedars... Thujas or Juniperus.. Red cedar, white cedar, true red cedar, eastern white ceder, northern white cedar, it all can get confusing unless you start getting into the habit of using Genus and species. That's a cool photo of a Scots Pine but be careful not to view an individual growing under certain conditions and apply the morphology to an entire population. A case in point is the difference in form between an maple growing in a field and an maple growing in a dense forest. Any tree will grow up given competition versus spreading in an open area.
From experience as a climber for a tree service along with doing a bit of logging on the side in an area that has white pines, red pines, scots pines (P. silvestri), norway pines (gotcha, they are the same as red pines), along with a lot of other conifers, I feel a lot safer working the scots pines as they are as tough as a lot of hardwoods.
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We should absolutely go for Latin names. One should think it natural to have Norway pine (Pinus resinosa) here in Norway. But in Norway we only have Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) ???
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Go figure. Anyhoo, it's been fun chatting with you all, but I better get my arse in gear and get some stuff done: I manage a nature preserve and trail system here in northern Michigan and I have to design and do the layouts for a bunch of fancy new interpretive signs in six different distinct eco zones, along with putting together a plan to maintain forest diversity after the Emerald Ash Borer gets here and knocks out our white and black ash...That and still keeping up with my bow production till our season kicks in.
Thank you for having me, John
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I once made a bow from pitch pine. It was a floor board which I sinewbacked. It gave about 30 pounds. An ice age museum wanted me to make such a bow. I told them I could`t believe the ancestors made sinewbacked bows in the iceage. In my tests I sorted out that a "warmer temperature" in the workshop (iceage tent) must be given for the hide glue. I didn`t try it in the tent at wintertime. It would be worth an experiment.
But they `wanted to have a bow of pine as the ancestors had. At this time only small birches and pinetrees wer growing.
I have made some pics of it but found only one. Hope to find the others...
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Just found them:
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Hey thats a cool looking bow !
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Thanks! I worked it out very careful with a lot of respect of that board which came from a house more than 100 years old.