Using Sapwood

I suspect that the influences of horn and sinew are going to overpower any differences between heartwood and sapwood of the wood core.

What do you mean by "Lathe"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lathe

Heartwood has different properties in softwoods (yew,Juniper). Softwoods are typically not used for horn bows.

It has been debated if heartwood is mechinically different in softwoods.

However hornbows are typically made from diffuse porous woods, such as mapple birtch etc. These woods typically do not produce heartwood at all.

You do not discuss what kind of bow, but I assume you mean sinew-wood-horn composite.
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yes jkekoni i mean sinew-wood-horn composite and the laths is mention in Adam book and i wrote it wrong.i want to reproduce Persian and Turkish bows withh mullberry.be cause in old Parsi texts it's mention that they build their bows from mullberry board.

Lath = wooden core strip of a composite bow. Funny old language, English....

Lath is also the old term for a bow in a crossbow. Modern authors call it a "prod", but this stems from a copyist's error; the original word was "rod" and it referred to the stock of the crossbow and not the bow.

A lath is also just a common term for a thin strip of wood. An example is "lath and plaster" wall construction. Not surprisingly the pieces of wood commonly called laths bear a close similarity to a bow core.

Thank for your comments.

Using Mulberry brings up some interesting things. It is a really knotty tree but when one is cut down, secondary growth comes up sprouting in a circle from the old stump. These come out in a J-shape, curved at the stump and otherwise straight.

When these got large enough, it would appear that they would make the perfect items for horn bow cores. pre shaped and all. They would be used whole so no reason to need sapwood.

Alternately, I am not sure sapwood of Mulberry would be a problem per se, other things being equal.

Jack you mean mullberry can be used with sapwood?

Hc; I am not sure, never made a hornbow with mulberry. Just self bows and it was no problem. But the learning curve on hornbows is a problem. I would not go down that road without the finest available material.

Actually I just made an opinion because that seems to bring out others.

Do you have a given name? or do you have a pen name? Your ATARN name is difficult for me. Thanks.

Always better without sapwood. Mullberry is excelent wood, but you need very carefully selection

Yes Jack my full name is Mohammad Javad Shoaee. :D

Salam Mohammad,
I love using shahtoot for bows,it works great,cores I would prefer heartwood myself and for sahiyas I prefer laminating strips to the desired thickness rather than bending one solid pieceI have a couple with shahtoot cores curing right now.
P.J.

Mohammad, what kind of wood good for hornbows can you find in your area?
*Btw, my ex girlfriend speaks farsi, she did effort to learn it :D .
Khosh vaghtan,
Zoran

Thanks for your advice PjSingh.
Zoran here i can find any wood but it's hard to find good peice without knots.in one old Persian poem that i've found say's using mullberry.
and know i have enough mullberry even for ten bows :lol:
know i'm searching for sugar or hard maple.

Hi
you discuss heart+sapwood but I have another greenhorn question:
what is your experience with young maple sprouts (3-5cm diameter) for the core ? I cannot tell about the final result yet but I have tons of that available and the fabrication of a (3-part) core from this is straighfwd and fast even with simple tools.
:-)

I do not know about maple in your area but saplings from here in the U.S. have too many knots from branches in my opinion.Turkish bowyers certainly used them in the old days and even trained the saplings by trimming the branches at the base when the sapling was very young.

Mohammad,you might want to try mango wood if it is available in your area.
P.J.

Uli i doesn't hhave any bow making experience whith maple but as write in Adam book the sapling could be to fist(about 10 cm or more)and turkish bower used this and as PjSingh said tey probably train them.
PjSingh i tink in southern province of Iran we have it but are you serious? :shock: and do you have any experience with it?

In India mango wood is considered one of the best woods very strong and resistant to insects,I do not have access to it here or I would definately be using it.

I have heard of mango being used in the cores of composite bows in India. I saw some mango boards last week; the wood seemed to have quite open pores. The pieces I saw were knot free.