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Main Boards => The Bowyer's Bench => Topic started by: Dick in Seattle on January 03, 2009, 06:37:00 PM
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I got to conduct a quick shopping raid on Crosscut Hardwoods this afternoon. Came out with a nice 4' x 8" x 8/4 piece of walnut from which will come many risers, a 7' X 8" x 3/4 clear black walnut plank, which can make limb lambs or be used in laminated risers, and 3 assorted 3/4 planks of nice maple... two clear grain and one with a little curl. This gives me more variety acceptable stuff to work with than just the red oak and hickory I have had on hand.
They had a lot of elm... but no red elm... just "elm" and "white elm". I know that red elm is a favored lam wood. I'd be interested in any comments or comparisons between red elm and other elms. If white elm is anywhere near as usable as red, I have a heck of a source right close by.
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dick ill tell ya flat out i bulid mostley self bows but when it comes to elm ill take white any day over red never have tryed the white for lams but i do use red in my glues up bows some of the fastest static recurves ever made by marc st louis are white and i got lots of it here if ya can get it all cut ready to go ur way ahead cuz it s no fun at all to split white elm ha have fun and good luck brock
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I may have once worked for the Forest Service, but a logger I'm not! I'll take my wood the same way I take my meat... pre-cut and packaged :^) I'll leave wrestling it raw out of the woods and fields to guys like you.
Hopefully there will be some more input, but this afternoon I was standing in front of vertically stacked white elm planks from 8 to 16 feet long, of varying widths and thicknesses from 3/4 to 6/4. The stack was maybe 6 to 8 planks deep and about 8 feet long on the floor. For laminate use I'm cutting to 2" x 36" and then resawing lam pieces from that. I could get a heck of a lot of lams from one good plank!
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sounds good dick if you do get a bunch cut give me a hollar i might trade or buy a set of em from ya cuz id like to try some white elm for some lams and same goes for me i aint a splittin no log either i got 2 young boys i sat there watched em do it and not for me haha ill stick to my osage and maulberry brock
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Red elm is favoered mostly for it's light weight and pretty grain, but it is usually stained. When they say white lem, I bet they mean a specie with more sapwod than heartwood. No reason NOT to use it, if you can make it as pretty as you want...the grain will show up nicely with a dye or stain.
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speaking in regards to selfbows: Slippery (red) elm is a good bow wood. I was on my way to making a great a bow out of it, but a hidden knot broke one of the limbs. I wrote an article about it. Great potential for a bow wood.
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Dick, the unique reason of rare use of a white elm (he too has brown nucleus, but small) - pale colouring. On quality he does not concede to the majority of breeds of a tree. Some kinds have beautiful wavy figure, or longitudinal dark hyphens.