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Actionboo-vs-bamboo-vs-yew. Interesting.

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Ghost Dog:
I was talking with a well known bowyer a few nights ago; someone who makes a very fine line of handcrafted longbows. Like so many bowyers he offers bamboo flooring (plyboo, lamboo, actionboo) as a core material, along with yew.

During our conversation he mentioned to me that he had noticed that straight grained yew used as a core material was producing faster arrow flight in his bows, all things being equal. I found this really interesting, as actionboo is such a popular choice these days.

I own several bows from this particular bowyer. All of them are the same length, two have natural bamboo cores, two have actionboo cores and two have yew cores. All are within two pounds of each other and all have the same string materials.

I do not own a chrono, so this is not meant to be a conclusive test, but I do have a couple of arrows that make a screaming sound when they reach speeds of 170 fps, or greater. I am sure that you know what I mean by this.

The upshot is this; the yew cores are faster by quite a bit, even when some of the bamboo cored bows had a heavier draw weight than the yew cored bows. Aside from the arrow report, I can see the difference too. There is also no noticeable difference in "hand shock" either, which might be expected to be less with the lighter bamboo cores.

Now I am not an arrow speed guy in the least. I am most at home with a fine selfbow as many of you know, and speed is not a selfbow issue as much as it is with glass laminated bows. I just thought that this was an interesting discovery on the part of my friend the bowyer, which my own small time test seems to agree with.

Now what does any of this mean? Maybe it means that in a good bow design a wood core is just as good, and maybe better, than a bamboo/actionboo core, but with so many variables in bow designs, a real conclusion would require real tests, as much as the screaming arrow test appeals to me.    :)

LBR:
You and your bowyer aren't the only ones that have come to that conclusion Ghost.  Chek-Mate doesn't offer bamboo cores because, in their designs at least, they didn't find any reason to use bamboo over yew.  Also, bamboo is more expensive for them to get, more labor intensive, and the nodes can be a weak point.

I agree that bow design can play a part also.  Marc (the bowyer) plans to keep experimenting, but to date they still don't offer bamboo limbs.

Chad

Pete W:
Interesting.
 Are all risers the same length?
 Are the only diferences in the limbs the core material or are there other diferent woods/veneers in them?
 Are they all the same model and with the same amount of reflex/deflex?
Is the nock fit the same on all of the strings?Have you tried using the same string on each bow so nock fit and string weights will not be diferent?

Ghost Dog:
Hey Pete,

Are all risers the same length?------Yes.

Are the only diferences in the limbs the core material or are there other diferent woods/veneers in them?------All have veneers.

Are they all the same model and with the same amount of reflex/deflex?------Exactly the same.

Is the nock fit the same on all of the strings?------ Yes.

Have you tried using the same string on each bow so nock fit and string weights will not be diferent?-------Yes.

Pasty Face:
That is interesting. I dont know much about building bows but I thought Bamboo was the perfect limb wood, strong and light.

Cool

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