silverleaf maple

[recurve shooter]

sup fellers? has any of yall ever heard of silverleaf maple? i got some of the stuff growing down here and was wondering if ya can make a decent bow out of it. it looks pretty streight and stuff, but it's pretty soft, so i dont know. holler back.

[Hillbilly]

Silver maple (Acer saccharinum) is common through the South in river floodplains and is also planted a lot as a shade tree.. It is probably the lightest and weakest of the maples except for maybe box elder. It has really brittle wood, and I personally wouldn't try to use it for a bow if I could find anything else. With that said, though, Jamie (MichiganBowGuy) posted a bow awhile back that he said was made from silver maple, and it looked like a good'un.

[recurve shooter]

well, we shall see in a few months. i just cut down a 10 foot section of trunk about 10 inches across. gonna start on it prolly at the end of the summer. also got some iron wood/blue beech/musclewood/hornbeam/whatever other names there are for it, pecan, oak and something els that i cant id drying. gonna start on the oak this weekend.

[Hillbilly]

Try everything you can find in your area that might make a bow. There are probably a lot of good bow woods out there just waiting to be discovered.

[recurve shooter]

thats my plan. just waiting till i aint got to swim through my woods. i floated the maple out, got like 3 feet of water back there, but i had to go get it. knew where it was and that it was newly fallen.

[El Destructo]

I have made two from it....both fromTrees in My Own Yard here...I still have on Stave left.... I didn't have any problem with it at all....but then I like Sycamore as a Bow Wood too....and I don't know too many others that would waste their time with it

[michbowguy]

i made that bow to prove a point.
it made one!
that little bow is wicked fast!

things to remember tho...coat the ends as they will check fast,i use pitch.
leave bark on for 2 weeks.
then take bark off and grease it.
then scrape of pitch and re grease and put in hot car for a week.
every day it is in car grease and wipe down good.
then work the bow, keep it long and DO NOT HEAT AND FLIP TIPS OR RECURVE.
just work as is,man tall and you will make a shooter in a month from it is cut.

mbg

[OldBow]

Making bows is a lot of time and hard work. I'd stick to realiable wood and the list doesn't include silver maple.

[El Destructo]

                                                     Don ....where is your sense of adventure?

[recurve shooter]

ok, cool. will do. what do ya coat the ends with? wood glue?

[El Destructo]

you can coat them with Glue...that works fine...also Varnish....Urethane....or shellac will all work too

[recurve shooter]

ok, cool. next probably ignernt question. what dose greasing the wood do?

also, i just went and checked on my staves drying in the shed. SOMETHING IS EATING THE BARK off of one stave of a kind of wood of which im uncertian. any adea what it is? it aint touched the wood, just the bark. huh. oh well, thats less bark i got to scrape off.

[El Destructo]

The Grease is a Sealant too and will slow down the Evaporation of Moisture from the Wood and keep it from Checking or worse....cracking open....as for the Bark being eaten away....it may be beetles or Grubs....maybe you should debark it...and seal the Back....just to make sure that they aren't eating the wood away and you just haven't seen it yet!!!

[recurve shooter]

might just do that. i think its woodbees eating it, and they will eat the wood soon. gonna do that later. and i aint got any grease, is there anything els i can use? or maby just leave the bark on longer??

[El Destructo]

coat it all with Shellac....or Varnish after you take the Bark off