Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: DuBois on February 22, 2016, 02:27:52 pm
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Got this from Hedghogit in NE Kansas along with some osage. Yellow more like mulberry but bark kinda like oak. Hedgehog did not know for sure what it was. Straight and about 9 feet long split.
Here it is next to a long osage split (the one on the top of pic).
Looks like good wood to me.
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Locust is my guess.
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Looks like black locust to me.
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Debark a bit, take some of the cambium, if it's still fresh (white) and smells like fresh green bean pods or green peas, it's likely a locust. Pretty poisonous if it's black locust, so no need to taste it.
If it's dry or brown (dead), tear some fibers from it. (Black) locust will give you very long and flexible fibers. Put some in a cup of hot water, if it smells again like bean pods, it's likely locust. Mulberry will never have that smell. It could be dead already for too long though and not give that smell anymore.
The bark doesn't seem typical for black locust of that size, the flakes look too thin for that size, ridges not deep enough and the color seems too grey instead of light brownish grey. Looks more like honey locust to me.
Don't know the smell of honey locust cambium, but since it's a leguminous tree too I bet it also has a smell of fresh peas.
Still, could also be Kentucky coffee tree, another one in that family with similar looks.
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Ok thanks.
Either way I'm gonna keep it and make bows maybe just overbuild them some.
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honey locust is my guess from the pictures
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The honey locust I've seen around my place doesn't have bark like that....kinda looks like mulberry to me.
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Ya know, that area has a lot of hickory but not like this that I can recall.
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Honey locust.
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It seems to be agreed to be locust. I was hoping for hickory but didn't expect it with the color.
Thanks everybody and Hedgehog ;)
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Looks like black locust. We have the exact same wood color and bark on BL over here
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Another way to distinguish BL and HL from Mulberry is by use of fluorescence (black light).
Black locust and honey locust will give a bright green glow, Coffee tree will rather give a bright yellow to green glow, and mulberry none at all.
see more: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/fluorescence-a-secret-weapon-in-wood-identification/
Now you just need to find a blacklight 8)
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Looks like honey locust
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Another way to distinguish BL and HL from Mulberry is by use of fluorescence (black light).
Black locust and honey locust will give a bright green glow, Coffee tree will rather give a bright yellow to green glow, and mulberry none at all.
see more: http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/fluorescence-a-secret-weapon-in-wood-identification/
Now you just need to find a blacklight 8)
For some reason I can't recall I have one stashed away 8)
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The wood looks like black locust only a lighter version. The bark would lead me to rule out black locust though. Were there more of these trees around? I've never seen just one black locust in an area. They shoot runners like gangbusters.
Kentucky coffee tree is my guess. Did you happen to notice thorns at all? They way the thorns grow is an excellent way to tell them all apart in the winter.
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looks like red mulberry to me
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i'm in with the black locust crowd. Honey/yellow locust has much smoother bark, even on the trunk where it starts to get craggy, the high spots are flat, reddish, and not SO craggy. BL has deep cragg bark like an old poplar or cottonwood, but darker, and the color on that stave's heartwood is perfect. Black locust heartwood ranges from a dark yello-brown with an olive undertone, to an orange-brown with a muddy undertone, almost like dirty mulberry heartwood.
The UV thing is interesting, I think I had heard of it and forgotten. But, alternatively, you can smooth one side of that split with a scraper/sandpaper, wet it or slap a little clear finish on the spot, and get some light angling off it. BL usually has little striations crosswise in the rings and seems to have an internal golden luster. Mulberry just has minor, but pretty color variations running through it.