Hi gang,
I have never built a bow before but have always been intrigued with the "How to build a bow " chapter in Howard Hills book. Has anyone here built one off of his instructions? If so how was it? And do you have pics of the bow to share? Thanks

I have a lemonwood stave and a hickory backing that I was planning to build the bow in HH's book. I was reading about it the other day. When I'm done I'll post pics but it will be a while.

I know they used lemonwood in a lot of manufactured bows back then so I have a question.

During his popularity, someone like "HH" who was obviously big in the re-introduction of archey ;

Why did he use lemonwood and not osage?

Don't know much about him so maybe he did?

Forgive my indiscretion since this is a complete and utter shot in the dark but ...

My guess is lemonwood was used for reasons of availability, and straight grain. Osage is not known for being straight grained. Also maybe that the color scheme of hickory over lemonwood resembled the Yew bows that were also common back then, but probably still much more expensive.

The only other thing I could think is that maybe it's more consistent in density/performance. This wouldn't matter much for making one bow because you're tillering alot anyway, whats a little more wood removal, but for a manufacturing process repeatability is key.

Back in the day lemonwood was readily available, plentiful and cheap. I good lemonwood stave only cose a few bucks and a good osage stave probably cost 2 or 3 times as much.
 I have an old York lemonwood ELB style bow from the 1940's. Im a copy of the original catalog this bow cost $7 with cast aluminum "horn" nocks. If backed it would cost $9. I think their osage bows were like $15.

I read somewhere once that lemonwood will withstand more ring violations than other woods, making it easier to manufacture into bows.

Lemonwood like most tropical woods don't have noticable growth rings because in the tropics the growing season is continuous. You can hardly see growth rings in good lemonwood.

Okay, good answers but, if price was a factor,,, was he so broke his personal bow was lemon wood? He couldn't afford an extra $6.00 for the osage?

Maybe his sponsors made him use lemon wood cause that's what they sold the most of.... That's where they were making their $$$...

Umm isn't osage also much harder/denser thus more difficult to work?  I think Howard mentions this in the chapter.

Joe, you'd have to ask Howard that. d;^)  
Lemonwood was probably so popular because it was so available, uniform and cheap. I imagine in its hayday lemonwood was used by everyone, even the top guys.
 Hugh, osage is a dense, hard wood but as a bowyer I don't find it all that difficult to use. I actually like the fact that it fights back as you are building a bow. It gives it more spunk when all is said and done. Also, osage manipulated better,IMO, than other bow woods so even not so perfect pieces of osage can be wrastled into a bow with a little heat and work.

I have a few billets of Lemonwood left & I think I know why it was used.  

A few years ago I received 3 boards from a company that didn't know what "to be used in archery applications" meant.  I was able to use 95% of the wood, no cracks, no checks, 1 knot & it was perfectly dried and straight as an arrow.  As Pat said you can barely tell where the growth rings are.  

You could almost cut this stuff up for bows like it was actionwood.  

As far as I know the only place it's still available is from Cuba & my last billet