Foreign woods?

[Ross.m.]

I don't know what made me think about it, but the thought of non American wood bows popped into my head. Why do we never see them?
     New Zealand has one of the most diverse plant ecology in the world due to its isolation, so I started researching the most durable and hardest woods that grow there. The hardest wood is called puriri. It has a density of 900kg/ cubic meter. In comparison the hardest hickory is 832kg/ cubic meter. Has anyone even attempted to use this as bow wood?
      I also searched for "New Zealand bowyers" and nothing came up on google. Apparently, the New Zealand natives called the Maori never used bows traditionally. So there aren't many current or any traditional bows made in New Zealand. I am extremely curious about this, because it could be a superb and unique bow wood that no one has ever tried to use. I'm sure there are a plethora of other lesser known woods from all over the world like this. Why have they not been used?

[PatM]

Many of them actually have. A lot of the foreign hard timbers have trouble with compression elasticity.
 There a few guys from NZ making bows and experimenting.
 

[Ross.m.]

How are those experiments going?

[PatM]

Not very well apparently. None of the woods seem to have as much promise as they appear to.

[Ross.m.]

That's disappointing to say the least. Most of them are conifers, that might have something to do with it.

[Crogacht]

Hi Ross,

I'm just starting out and haven't made a bow yet, but I know a few others a lot further along. There is a guy on PA called Rob who lives not that far from me, he's had good results with Tanekaha, Kowhai, Tawa, Rata and Kanuka if I remember correctly, but we're both planning to experiment with as many native woods as we can. I have some black beech dry in the garage which may end up being my first attempt at a bow, it is endemic to New Zealand.

You mentioned Puriri; there are several woods that would make good bows on paper, but are actually getting quite rare, so even if I knew where to find some, I probably wouldn't cut any down.

And if you were wondering about these "experiments"... this is a Kanuka war bow that apparently throws an arrow VERY FAR. It was made by someone from the war bow society. Kanuka seems very promising if you have the skill to avoid fretting, and it's probably one of if not the most common native wood around here.

As for not seeing much sign of New Zealand bowyers... well we only have about 4.5 million people in the whole country, and as you pointed out, it wasn't a part of the Maori culture. There are not many people building bows and most of them are not posting about it, so as a result, there is very little online. I've seen posts by MAYBE half a dozen New Zealand bowyers on the internet.

[Crogacht]

Also, here's a nice Kanuka bow by Rob:

http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,44970.0.html

I like our Native woods, but it's always nice to see photos of foreign woods such as Osage 

I also forgot to add... Puriri is nowhere near the hardest wood. Southern rata is something like 1140 kg/m3 and there are others too.

[Hamish]

Hey Ross, I saw pictures of a bow made from tea tree. It was made by a NZ bowyer. I'm not sure if it was an Aussie introduced species, or a native of NZ( We have lots of tea tree in Aus). It seemed to do pretty well because it was 120lb warbow. Check the  ozbow website and do a search.
                 Hamish.

[Crogacht]

Tea tree is the Manuka, basically the same as Kanuka, but a bit more scrubby. Makes good warbows apparently

[DarkSoul]

the thought of non American wood bows popped into my head. Why do we never see them?

We see bows from non-American woods all the time! Plenty of English yew (not the same as your Pacific yew), ipé (from South America), bamboo (from Asia), elms (from Europe) and so on. This forum just happens to have an American origin, since it is based on the Primitive Archer magazine. The messageboard Trad Gang is even more American based, while Paleo Planet seems to be a bit more international. But also Primitive Archery has many 'foreign' people (if you consider Americans the native ones), but you just have to know where to look. Not everyone fills in the 'location' in their profile. Still, when I am using Black Locust, I am using a stinking exotic wood! I live in Europe and Black Locust is not native here. So to me, Black Locust is an exotic wood from America so I am still using a foreign wood.

I am not completely sure if your question is specifically to New Zealand woods/bowyers, or to all non-American woods/bowyers in general. But many regions also have their own local archery forums. The fact that this forum is (of course) in English, may deter many foreign people that don't speak English. And Australian and/or New Zealand people may rather post at their local message board OZ Bow. If you were to speak German, the message board Flethers Corner will be really interesting to you. Over on Paleo Planet, a very interesting topic was started about less familiar bow woods. You'll find some very unique woods being used their, mainly European woods.

By the way, the New Zealand wood 'puriri' might have a high specific gravity (SG), but that does not automatically make it a good bow wood. Many true bow woods have an SG of around 0.6 to 0.7. The woods also needs to be elastic, not just have a high SG. Over the years, I've seen a few Australian people appear on Paleo Planet and have gained some knowledge from their posts. Okay, New Zealand is still a long way from Australia, but due to the reasons Crogacht mentions, I've not seen New Zealanders I think. Many Australian woods appear to have a high density but lack some elasticity. There's an abundance of eucalyptus over there, and some of them do actually work for bows. Also mangrove species can be really good. There's just not many Australian/New Zealand bowyers around, so it's easy to overlook what little they do post about their local bow woods.

[Ross.m.]

Thanks guys! I've always wanted to visit New Zealand so I just wanted to get informed on any potential bow wood there so I could come back with something unique!

[Shamusrobert]

Gidday Ross, I've been having better luck with nz native timbers as my experience and knowledge of the wood I'm working with grows. We have over 500 tree speices so they can't all be bad in compression. I think there is quite I bit of deference between nz and Ozzie timbers and the climates between the two countries are completely different. But as crogacht says there is very few primitive bowyers in nz. I been wanting to try puriri myself but the stuff grows right up north so I haven't had a chance to get any yet. It is in the teak tree family so that may not be a good thing.
Give us a yell if you come over as I should be able to hook ya up or a least point ya in the right direction.
Cheers.
Rob.