Urban Woodhunting

[Innocente]

today i stumbled across a source of wood in the city - i saw a neighbor with a chainsaw and a ladder, limbs littering the ground.  i screeched to a stop and walked up to him, told him about my hobby and asked for a limb. he trimmed it for me, made me promise to come show it to him when i completed it. 

now of course i identified it as "a tree limb", no clue about type of wood, so i took a branch with leaves and got on the net - White Ash. (forestry.about.com/od/treeidentification/tp/tree_key_id_start.htm)

cross referenced that on Tim Baker's wood site (sites.google.com/site/onemississipp/), - not the greatest wood - but good enough to try making my first stave bow out of!

gonna pack a wood saw in my car, people are ALWAYS trimming stuff in my neighborhood!

[LEGIONNAIRE]

what area did u say you were in?

[OldBow]

The amount and quality of really good bow wood is often found a few miles from your home. City parks/forestry programs are a great source of firewood..I mean bowwood

[barebo]

White Ash makes an excellent long (68") flatbow. It needs to be DRY - otherwise it'll follow the string. 2" fades to 1/2" tips.
Made some nice ash bows. I think it gets a bad rap sometimes. Godd Luck, and nice find!!

[Hillbilly]

I've made several good shooting bows from white ash.

[Lombard]

I'm with you Barebo , some of my best bows have been from White Ash. With proper design and tillering, it is as good as any other white wood. Read Badger's post about no set tillering.

[elk country rp]

heheheh- i have a pile of random staves curing in storage- "sampled" from various Bozeman neighborhoods after dark.......

urban woodhunting is kinda fun if you ask me!

[Diligence]

too funny.  All I have to choose from is wild birch, or urban city Elm, Ash or the odd Maple.....not to mention Russian Olive, Ornamental Chokecherry.

I just wait for the first snow storm of the year,......somebody always takes out a tree or two.

J

[Innocente]

sweet, that's reassuring, you guys have had good luck with the white ash.  Tim's post made it sound like i'd need a half-draw, sinew backed, 20# draw bow plan to make this work!

i peeled it down today, gonna kind of hack it out and roughly floor tiller it, then dry it for several months. if i make something that doesn't detonate, i'll post a pic of it.

living up near sacramento, for whoever asked.

[Canoe]

Howdy Innocente,

I have made a few fine hunting bows from my White Ash collection.  But, as mentioned, you have to keep the moisture content low or it'll take on a heavy set - It's happened to me.  Make 'em long and wide, as mentioned above.  (Mine are eye hight, and are a tad under 2" for most of the limbs.  I start my taper about 13" from the tips.  Stiff handled ALB's tapered to about 3/8".)

Hey, Are you really sure you got some White Ash??  White Ash is an eastern tree, and I find it a little hard to imagine it would grow well in Sacramento.


Here's a link to a White Ash ID page...
http://sfrc.ufl.edu/4h/White_ash/whiteash.htm

...and seal those ends.

All the Best,
Canoe

[Innocente]

yeah i positively ID'd it on the 'net.  it's certainly not INDIGENOUS, i'll cede that. but with aggressive watering, you can make a a polar bear grow in the desert.

on dimensions: one of you guys advise me - i hacked off ~68" or so - best length available from the selection - the diameter is 1.9" at the leaf end, and 2.2" at the trunk end.  i was EXTREMELY careful shaving it, to take it down to the wood and NOT actually broach the wood.  should i cut it right in half and follow an ELB design? how should i approach this?