Which type of rings are stronger?

[Easternarcher]

A guy offering to set aside some elm logs asked me if tight rings were best on elm or more open rings as young growth trees.  I couldn't give him an answer.

What's the scoop on this? What about B. locust and hornbeam which he is also offering to save for me.

I suppose it's different for selfbows as opposed to backed bows right?

[Badger]

Easter, on locust and osage i prefer wider rings, on whitewoods I have no opinion and have seen both narrow and wide ringed bows perform well. Ash I prefer wider most of the time but no solid opinions. Steve

[snedeker]

I've wondered about that issue two in white woods.  I am looking around at some white oak trees.  Ones near me on some rough sandy soiled ridge country are very thin ringed, but I see lumber cut from rich soils with pretty thick w. oak rings.  Some discussions of lumber I have seen mention that shagbark hickory is heavier and harder when thick ringed.

Dave

[Pat B]

I've made bows with both hickory and elm with thin rings and they came out great. I prefer rings about 1/8" to 3/16" think on osage, locust, mulberry, etc. but I have made very nice bows with thin ringed osage. The osage ELB that won BOM in Feb. of 06 has very thin rings and made a beautiful ELB that shoots like a champ.     Pat

[Justin Snyder]

I don't know enough to say one way or another. I will say though that you can have too thick of rings. In some of the really thick rings, the spring growth is a little thicker. It still seems thin in comparison to the late growth, but it is not as thin as I would like. I made an osage bow with thick rings and only had 2 good layers left in the bow.  It should have had 3, but the thickness caused tillering to get the 3rd ring so thin that the spring growth caused a problem and had to come off.  This bow came in under weight.  I guess what I am saying is if the spring growth is not super thin, I don't care how thick or thin the summer growth is.    Justin

[brian melton]

              For yew the wider the better...

[Pappy]

I prefer the thin rings on Osage as long as the spring growth is very thin also,the wood seem
to be denser and I have better luck hitting weight,it seems to stabilize better.As far a white wood
I haven't see much difference,I usually pull the bark while the sap is up and never really look at the ring thickness unless I need to chase one.
   Pappy

[Marc St Louis]

When it comes to Elm I have found that thin uniform rings to be better. American Elm can have coarse rings that waver in size along the woods length going from thin to thick in the space of a few feet.

[Coo-wah-chobee]

 Thin rings like Pappy said.bob

[George Tsoukalas]

Thick (1/8" or so) or more  is good for BL, if you have a preference. Otherwise take what you can get and learn to overcome. Jawge

[Easternarcher]

George....I agree with ya...I'll take what I get.....
I hop eto get some b. locaust soon. ( I wasn't even aware that we HAVE locust up here)