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Core woods???

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loefflerchuck:
Birch is one of the best core woods. Yellow birch is hard to tell from sugar maple as far as looks and weight of the wood.

bownarra:
Interesting the birch you can get must be completely different to the European Birch (silver).

stuckinthemud:
As I understand it, silver birch isn't great but yellow birch is excellent for bows, but is a species from the US not Europe.  Species from Scandinavia and other cold-climates in Europe are also excellent.  Such a shame Silver Birch is not supposed to be any good for bows, I am surrounded by the stuff.  BUT, this is only what I've been told, its not something I have any experience of in bow making.  I can vouch for it being a very hard, tough, beautiful timber though. How would you test for suitability as a core wood?  As I understand it, sheer resistance as well as bend-ability is important?

loefflerchuck:
Very true. There is variation in Birch species just like maple. For example the big leaf maple in California is a soft brittle wood while sugar maple out east is great. We have river birch around here that I would not try. I would not trust it. I buy yellow birch imported from the east in our hardwoods store.  I'm in Utah and we have lots of imported Norway maple growing here and I understand it is good and one of the woods used hundreds of years ago. Other invasive trees we have here are Siberian elm that was used in Mongolia in older bows. I have a core shaped here but found a couple knots in one limb so I'm going to cut a new piece. We also have white mulberry, it's not the best mulberry for self bows but I believe it is the same mulberry used in China. Another invasive tree/shrub is tamarisk. It was the core wood in old Scythian bows. Ash was used as a core in Egypt I have used it as a core on one not too stressed design and it works fine. I've seen others make cores of hickory and osage. I think Ivar's world record shots were a yew core Turkish flight bow(I may be mistaken) but it is the only good conifer I know of for cores.

stuckinthemud:
Norway Maple?  That's as common as silver birch here. Thought it was classed as  soft maple?

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