checking between the growth rings

[episaacs]

I have a few staves that have checking between the growth rings.  If this can't be avoided in the layout of the bow, what do you do to handle this problem?  The simplest solution would seem to be to glue them together with perhaps epoxy

[Pat B]

Sounds more like wind shakes than checking. That is a result of stresses in the live tree caused by heavy winds. I would be leery of the wood for bows. Someone else may have a different opinion.     Pat

[episaacs]

These cracks only appeared after drying for some months.

[Pat B]

The only time I've see this while wood was drying was on some locust I cut dead standing. After a drying period I began to make a bow but never got to the shooting stage before it went. I figured it was a fungi that had gotten into the early rings and deteriorated them.    Pat

[episaacs]

Interesting!  I just had assumed they were drying checks, though numerous searches have turned up nothing about them

[tom sawyer]

Probably not going to cause you a lot of trouble if they aren't large.  I'd suggest thin superglue and possibly heat the area so the glue is nice and thin as it seeps into the cracks.

Might well have been wind shakes, that only became apparent when the individual rings dried enough to shrink away from each other.

[Pat B]

Will you post pics?   Pat

[episaacs]

I'll try...

[Pat B]

Because of the coloration, I'd say they have been there for a while. They may have opened up a bit as they dried and that's why you didn't see them until then.   Pat

[Justin Snyder]

Look for the dark lines when you split it.  I have had good wood check like that from drying.  Often if people send me wood and don't seal it, it will look like that when it shows up.  Justin

[Trapper]

Ive had black Locust do this to me to, but the trees I cut had been pushed over with a dozer and I just figured it was the dozer that put to much stress on it as they pushed it cracked the only place it could.