climate and wood?

[bushboy]

Wondering if the climate affect woods properties?for example I,does a maple tree that grows in the far south equal to one that grows in the far north.the southern species would indeed have a longer growing season,perhaps year round where as the northern species would have a dormant period.sorry to be over scientific,but I'm hard core with a soft core mind!lol!

[kevinsmith5]

I think shorter seasons make hardwoods more durable, tighter rings

[crooketarrow]

  I can't shoot well enough to tell the difference.

[Josh B]

It definitely makes some difference in ring count, but there are a whole host of other variables that have as much or more to do with it.  Water, shade, soil fertility just to name a few.  I can't say what effects rpi have on diffuse porous hardwoods.  I just haven't used enough of em to know.  Most of the hardwoods that I've used repeatedly  are ring porous.  It is my opinion that ring ratio is far more important than ring thickness or rpi.  I think that for the most part, the variance in ring ratio has minute enough effect to be of little significance to the average bowyer.  Sort of like the difference between 1 MOA accuracy in a rifle and sub-MOA accuracy.  The vast majority of shooters aren't good enough shots to realize any advantage with the more precision rifle because even the 1 MOA rifle is capable of more accuracy than the shooter.   I'm kinda tired so I apologize if that doesn't make any sense.  Josh

[Del the cat]

IMO there is a huge lot of generalisations spoken about wood, climate, altitudue ring count growth rate etc.
Until you cut into a log you can't see what it looks like.
Seeing what it looks like is not really much of an indicator of performance anyhow!
Build it into a bow and see how it performs.
Of course tight ringed Yew with nice dark heartwood and a lovely thin sapwood layer is nice, but it may be growing 200 yards from a coarse ringed pale bit. They both might even perform the same.
Just my opinion of course.
As an example of the crooked thinking...
You want slow grown high altidue timber right? Errrr so that counts out any tropical hardwoods like Ipe, Lemonwood etc then? Errrrrr....
Del

[dwardo]

I was cutting ash and elm all weekend and the difference between the timbers was vast as usual. I did notice over the last 10-15 years there was a marked difference in the thickness of the growth rings being much smaller.
The heartwood/sapwood ratio was also completely different from tree to tree. I will get my camera out later and pop up some pictures when i get the feeling back in my arms. That and attended to my bites on bites.

If we think of variance in our "species" small, tall, fat, thin and even ginger.,..

[vinemaplebows]

I think shorter seasons make hardwoods more durable, tighter rings

If that's the case thing ringed osage would be at a premium price. On the other hand short seasons have lead to some of the most interesting tone woods in the world. (violins)

VMB

[lostarrow]

Does have a huge effect . Not always desirable for what you need. As was posted earlier there is a lot of variables that go into it.  On ring porous woods  (Oak ,Ash etc. ) you don't want a lot of growth rings for a bow.   Woods like Maple , HHB, etc. would benefit from tight growth rings.  Making furniture , or (more critically)  Musical instruments  will also benefit from Northern grown , or Old growth  characteristics.  Like people, ........ every piece is an individual!

[bow101]

I think shorter seasons make hardwoods more durable, tighter rings

No doubt..     I have some Old growth douglas Fir, that has 42 rings per inch, You'll never see that with Osage.