Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: jayman448 on June 04, 2015, 06:40:36 pm
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I have been looking at trees that make bows (obgiously) as i dont know much and hope do know all xD haha. So anyways... is it safe to say any tree that produces flowers or fruit will make a bow? If so thatd be a real easy guide to newbies such as myself xD. Feel free to tell me how off the mark i am
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Errr ... don't all trees produce flowers and fruit?
Del
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Not pine or birch or willow or spruce or maple. But pear, cherry juniper saskatoon hawthorn etc. Do and all make bows
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I've heard it said that if you make it long enough and wide enough and you can make a bow out of just about anything.
http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=8695.0 (http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php?topic=8695.0)
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Pines, birches, spruce, maple, etc., etc.. etc. all have flowers and fruit, maybe not the poseys you might be thinking of but flowers none the less.
To answer the original question...no, not all flowering and fruiting trees are appropriate for making bows. Most hardwoods and some soft woods will make bows with the proper design for the woods characteristics.
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Not pine or birch or willow or spruce or maple. But pear, cherry juniper saskatoon hawthorn etc. Do and all make bows
Maple does make bows sugar/hard maple makes great bows
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I've never seen flowers on pine, birches and maple, Pat.
Am I missing something?
Never mind...I probably am. :)
Jawge
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Many tree flowers are tiny. What you see as a faint mist of color in Spring is thousands of tiny flowers.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Sugar+Maple+Tree+Flowers&FORM=IRTRRL
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Where does the pollen come from George? ;) I pine flower cluster eventually becomes a pine cone with pine nuts, Birches have catkins(flower cluster) and maples have flowers like in PatM's link.
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bubby, i know maple and other such make fine bows. i was figuring if as a guide it could be assumed that fruit and flower producing trees will make bows (as a starter) (i know anything that produces an actual flower or fruit is different on the cellular level so i was putting two and two together). i guess if you consider newgrowth and cones as flowers and fruit then my hunch is totally off base. but to my origional quistion... is it pretty well fair to say that most trees that produce typical flowers and fruit bow worthy? my question also stems from a lack of knowledge i guess : it seems out here no one knows what the heck is growing. i ask people and i get the same answer every time... der.. um... its a kind of willow i guess. so when one is totally unlearned in trees as i am and has equally unknowing counterparts, would this be a good starting point? (obviously yes but only if my assumption can be held relatively true)
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p.s., i appologize now for my past, present, and future silly comments and questions... XD
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p.s., i appologize now for my past, present, and future silly comments and questions... XD
Don't worry, we are all daft here... just in different ways ;)
Del
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I would say in general fruit trees the answer is yes, flowers ,not so sure ,I think I know the kind of fruit you are talking about/apples/pears/plumbs and such. I knew the Maple would get
some comments. ??? Believe me there are no silly questions around here so no apology needed. :)
Pappy
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Sour Cherry, we call them Pin Cherry, does produce fruit but is a very low density wood. You can make a bow out of it but I wouldn't waste my time with it.
Some trees do not produce fruit at all and make great bows
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It's always been a general rule here that most trees that produce fruits or nuts will make a bow. I don't know about visible flowers as tulip poplar, mimosa, and magnolia aren't tauted as bow woods very often.
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In short, the answer to your question is no.
As for the flowers: all "flowering plants" produce flowers (duh...). This includes grasses, rushes and sedges, stinging nettles, birch, willow, oak, etc. These don't have obvious large and coloured petals but often small and green/brown scaly petals. In structure they are identical to what we call flowers. In these flowers the fruit is produced. Actually, this group of plants are called the fruiting plants, the angiosperms.
For an example of a maple flower, see http://newfs.s3.amazonaws.com/taxon-images-1000s1000/Sapindaceae/acer-platanoides-fl-ahaines.jpg
The catkin of a willow is an inflorescence (a bunch of flowers), a stalk containing hundreds of tiny flowers. All willows are either male of female, so a single tree will only produce male or female flowers (just like yew).
On the other hand, we have the conifers (the gymnosperms), which do produce pollen and female parts, but don't have actual flowers nor fruits. Their seeds are not embedded in a fruit, making them non-fruiting plants.
Now I hear you protest, because yew has a reddish "fruit". Also the ginkgo has a stinky "fruit". Structurally, this isn't a real fruit, it's a part of the seed coat that has become fleshy, and fulfills the same function as a fruit in fruiting plants. Through evolution, life always finds a way ...
But this isn't at all what you were trying to say. If it has obvious flowers, does it make a good bow? Not necessarily. Try a horse chestnut, or a catalpa, ...
On the other hand, hazel, various species of maple, hophornbeam, elm, different kinds of oak and hickory... all have tiny scaly green flowers, but will give you awesome bow wood.
There's no shortcut, you just have to get to know the species.
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Just to take this thought a bit further, does anyone have any theories about the best place for a tree to grow to produce the best bow (for that species)?
The angle I am coming from is that a tree that grows in a stand with others will grow straight and tall to the light, producing a clean straight stave. However a tree that grows in the open will be subject to a lot more wind flex therefore produces stronger wood. So it follows that for any given species there is an optimum growing site where there are enough nurse trees around to make it grow straight, but it is sufficiently in the open to get some but not too much wind flexing.
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I don't think flexing and wind action play any significant positive role. Reaction wood, moreover, can be pretty treachurous.
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There has been a couple of really nice bows made from Magnolia on here, one by Gregg b won BOM. And pines do have little flowers. When I come home from turkey hunting in South Carolina my Jeep is covered with green pollen.
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If you don't know the trees, try posting pics of them here maybe we can identify a few
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There has been a couple of really nice bows made from Magnolia on here, one by Gregg b won BOM. And pines do have little flowers. When I come home from turkey hunting in South Carolina my Jeep is covered with green pollen.
A pine does not actually produce flowers. They are gymnosperms.
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The easiest way to determine if an 'unknown' wood will make a bow is to cut a little piece, dry it completely in an oven, don't worry about checks just get it completely dry and see how high it floats in a cup of water. If at least half of it is underwater then it is at least 0.50 s.g. so give it a try.
That's my rule of thumb :)