Some HHB

[Marc St Louis]

Went to visit a friend yesterday.  This friend has quite a few HHB in his back yard.  I took a few pics of some of them

The first pic is a bit out of focus but it's of a 12" tree with a fair bit of twist.

The next pic is a group of HHB, the 2 that are closest are at least 8" in diameter and they also have a fair bit of twist.

The next pic is of a pretty decent 6" tree

The last one is a very nice 6" tree.

They probably have a couple dozen HHB trees in their back yard but most are very twisted.  His wife said I could harvest one of them, I thanked her but declined.

[wizardgoat]

Cool looking trees.  I've yet to try the wood, but I have a nice stave RyanR gave to me at the classic.
One day

[osage outlaw]

I wish I could find HHB trees like that around me.  I cut one in Tennessee a couple of weeks ago.  Should be some good mojo in that wood.  I like working with HHB.  It's my second favorite bow wood to use.

[bjrogg]

That's a nice group of HHB Marc. Just curious how old do you think they are?

[nclonghunter]

They remind me of cedar bark of the hard woods...nice tree in that stand.

[Marc St Louis]

That 12" tree, I say 12" but it's probably bigger than that at the butt, is probably a good 200 years old

There are 3 or 4 trees in that group that would be good for bows, straight with no branches for at least 6' and very little twist.  There are 1 or 2 that are excellent with practically no twist.  There must be at least a dozen tree 6" and over in diameter and another dozen smaller trees.  I took pictures of the biggest one and some of the nicer trees.  There are a lot that are gnarly and twisted

[PEARL DRUMS]

Nice example to easily identify the tree, Marc. 

[Marc St Louis]

You can see in the last 2 pictures that there are actually 2 different types of bark on Ironwood.  The last pic shows the traditional look of the bark and the second last pic shows another type of bark that is less common.  Here is a better pic of the shaggy type bark