Sooo.... I just cut some trees out from around my home, a couple of pines and a large walnut tree.  My question is, does walnut make decent bow material?  Just a hair brained idea running around in my head.

Talk to Chuck Deshler at Two Tracks.  He uses walnut as a limb core.

Walnut makes an excellent core wood.  Many bowyers consider it a top choice.  The bow in my sig is a walnut cored bow and is a shooter!

Bill-

A lot of nice gun stocks made out of walnut

A lot of Nice Walnut in bows.

Also if you can dig out the root Ball, some of the best wood is the walnut Root at the base of the tree where all the roots come in.

Google walnut Root and you will see some incredible wood.

I have a couple of side-by-side shotguns with highly figured grain in the walnut stocks and the wood is gorgeous. I think highly figured walnut would make a beautiful bow riser.
 

QuoteOriginally posted by smokin joe:
I have a couple of side-by-side shotguns with highly figured grain in the walnut stocks and the wood is gorgeous. I think highly figured walnut would make a beautiful bow riser.
     

That grain probably shows best in gun stocks. I'd be afraid a riser would be too small to show it off properly......unless you made one of those big target bow risers.
homebru
PS that doesn't stop me from lusting after a beautiful walnut bow.

Homebru, you are probably right. But a big recurve riser out of figured walnut would be something to see, that's for sure.

I have an Echo made by Chuck Deshler with walnut limbs that is an awesome shooter! Chuck has that "Magic" touch with walnut!  Horserod

My Widow psa has a Walnut riser.

I have a Figured Walnut crotch that will be in a bow riser within the next couple weeks.

Make sure you save the crotch sections as that can hold nice wood.

Homebru, it's the same thing with knife handles - you need some really dense pattern to show up in a small piece. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Same thing for bow risers.

Are you talking black walnut or english?

I'd say walnut is pretty nice wood for risers & the straight grained stuff is good for limb cores too..... makes pretty cool looking veneers too.

The only thing you need to be VERY careful of is reinforcing your riser properly. The wood is very brittle and can fail if you don't know what you are doing on certain types of risers.

 

 

 

 

btw.... if you are thinking of milling your own. Ruff cut it and run it through a plainer at 2" thick before you stack it to dry with lots of stickers. Then you need to keep a fan on it until you get it to 20%....  There is a lot that goes into harvesting & drying your own wood.

I have a 1961 Kodiak that is walnut sandwiching a purple heart I beam so walnut has been used in production bows...I also have two Chek Mate bows made from a walnut gunstock blank...Marc made wise use of phenolic in both cases for reinforcement

DDave

Like Kirk says it can be brittle. I found a piece and my bowyer had to stabilize it with glue in order to use it in my riser. But I think it is beautiful for sure.

My Bamabows Expedition has walnut limb cores and it shoots wonderful. The Bamabows Tribute has a walnut riser. So walnut can be used in any parts of the bow. Coming from a gunsmith background, we found the real fancy pieces of walnut are a lot more brittle than the straighter grain walnut is.

I love the way walnut "feels" in a limb core!  

The prettiest recurve I made was out of black walnut. I ground the laminations to the same thickness of the red elm or the osage and they came out well over weight.  Once they were sanded to the proper draw weight for the young lady it was made for I thought it was the best'n yet.  Hated to hand it over!