birch staves

[DEllis]

Cut some birch on the home place after work last week. I have a few experiments to perform this winter.......I plan to try 100# longbow with a piece of this ......I might end up wearing it
I figgure without too much trouble there are 14 longbows in this pile of wood.........the longes pieces are almost 8 feet long, with nice straight grain.
Darcy

[criveraville]

Nice haul!! Can't wait to see pics of that heavy bow

[Easternarcher]

What sort of birch is that? Would you back a stave or use it as a selfbow?

[crooketarrow]

   SWEETTTT 
  You might want to back it if you go to a 100#'s. I'd keep it 2"s wide and  66"s long or longer would be better. But don't take my work for it. I've only built one birch bow and it was no where close to 100 #'s.

[RyanY]

Beauties! I've never worked with birch but I have the belief that many different bow woods can make bows over 100#'s if designed right. Keep it long, around 76", and probably at 1.5" wide for the middle half of the length. Should give you plenty of wood to work with. Can't wait to see it.

[Lee Slikkers]

Nice haul...were those split or did you cut them?  They sure cleaned up nicely either way.

[new guy]

Nice wood. I just finished a paper birch selfbow,55#-ish. shoots well.I am curious to see how much it can do.

[dbb]

Nice and straight!
I have split 5 birches recently and only two was reasonably straight
The other3 looked like corkskrews,the worst twisted 210-220 degrees over 7"
I find it very hard to see twist on birch with that smooth bark.

/Mikael

[DEllis]

Lee Slikkers, I cut them with a chainsaw after I split a short block from the stump to verify that the grain was straight.
Easternarcher, it is paper birch......I will use them as self bows. I hate to use backings(personal bias and lazyness)
I find the straightest grain birch usually grows in a deep draw or sheltered north slope.......otherwise they tend to be twisted, and I can't tell if it's gonna be straight till I split it.......birch bark gives zero indication that I can see.
I have made birch bows 1 3/8 wide and less than 68 inches long with heat treated bellies that pull upwards of 70# @ 26 inches and with minimal set and no frets. I am looking to increase the draw length to 28 for the 100#er as that is about as far as I can draw a bow reasonably (I'm a half breed garden gnome/hobbit ) and then only if I get it close to my ear like the english archers do.
Gonna be a while before I get to it though, busy time of year for me.
Darcy

[Lee Slikkers]

Thanks Darcy...halfbreed gnome/hobbit...good stuff 

Have you tried using birch as a sapling bow at all or have all your bows been from larger trees that you cut staves from?  Chainsaw is close to cheating ain't it?   

[new guy]

I cut a paper birch that was about 12" diameter.It split in halves like a dream but quatering it was a different story.Still got lots of workable wood though. I am anxious to see your high weight bows. p.s. the inner bark is tasty

[DEllis]

Thanks Darcy...halfbreed gnome/hobbit...good stuff 

Have you tried using birch as a sapling bow at all or have all your bows been from larger trees that you cut staves from?  Chainsaw is close to cheating ain't it?   

So far I have only used birch from logs around 6"diameter and up........I have my eye on a couple of nice shade grown saplings that are long enough and straight enough. The moose like to break the small birch and eat the tops so it is hard to find unmangled birch saplings here.
My chainsaw is primitive technology........it's an old husky 266XP............might be almost cheating, but after running a brush saw all day at work, the last thing I felt like doing was beating on wedges Slippery slope I guess.....next time I turn around I'll be probably be shooting a  compound.............OK not likely
Darcy