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Pithy early wood in a red oak board

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JoeC:
Hi Guys,
I am working on another board bow - a red oak board.  Maybe it's me, but the early wood on this board seems to be particularly pithy (soft, spongy). Is this normal for red oak?

The board is flat sawn and I am planning to back it with rawhide. Should I scrap it and move on? Is this a waste of rawhide?

Thanks,
Joe

JW_Halverson:
Yeah, some red oak can act like it is all but punk wood. I suspect it is really fast growing trees putting on a lot of bulk but virtually no substance.

As many have discovered, lower density woods within a species tend to yield low performing bows. I made my first bow from a green ash stave that was very dense, it grew in a tiny draw on the edge of the South Dakota badlands, about 80 yrs old and 5 inches across. Every green ash I have cut since then has been grown as an ornamental in someone's yard and they have been up to 18 inches across and just 40-50 years old. Thick growth rings one would think are better, but some of them have made bows over 3/8th thick in the limb and still only pulling 30# of draw weight. Absolutely useless, good for nothing but kindling a fire.

When I go through the boards in my local box store I pick for grain orientation on all four sides, being exceedingly picky. Then once I have a couple candidates I start comparing them for weight. I take the heaviest ones and put the light ones back.

Post a pic of the end grain. Let's see how open and spongey it is!

JoeC:
JW, I've already roughed out the bow, so this is a photo of the end of a piece I cut off.

Pat B:
Wood cut for lumber isn't treated the same from the stump as wood cut for bows. That's why you have to hand pick store bought lumber for bows. I've noticed red oak boards from Lowe's or Home Depot is light in the hand where any red oak I've ever cut is pretty heavy. Go to a saw mill and see how the logs are treated at the saw mill, stacked outside until it's ready to saw into lumber.

JoeC:
Yeah, for some odd reason there wasn't a large selection when I looked through their boards. This one was pretty straight grained, but I didn't notice the early wood to late wood ratio.

Live and learn I guess. I'm going to finish it just to see how it turns out.

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