Seasoned wood

[Gouge]

Hello bowyers, this is my first post. I’ve built a few board bows and recently found suitable wood growing in the Australian bush and made a couple of flat bows. My question is regarding this particular wood (acacia shirleyi) or lancewood, if I fell a living tree and strip the sapwood off it seems perfectly seasoned. I’ve split it and immediately put a moisture gauge on and always, on multiple trees it reads between 11 and 7%. Ive made bows and shot them within days and haven’t noticed anything weird. This has been bothering me because of reading about all the time you guys leave staves to season. Has anyone heard of growing trees being already seasoned?

[Kirkll]

Only dead trees.....In Oregon these trees are at close to 30% MC levels green, maybe higher, and it takes a long time to air dry it.

How much string follow are you getting after you have shot these bows awhile?  That's pretty wild having a living tree measure 7% - 11% MC level.   I think i would be questioning my moisture meter settings.   Kirk

[Gouge]

Thanks for replying, I have no string follow (when I tiller right) and the sapwood is really wet 30%+. My favourite bow has had thousands of arrows through it and still performs like new. I live on the coast in cairns (tropics) but have to travel over 300miles inland to where these trees live to dry country and the trees live on sandstone ridges where nothing else will grow. I’m actually heading back this weekend so I’ll try post some pics

[dbeaver]

I like the title of your post its says it right there. Reading moisture levels youre checking to see how dry the wood is, but how seasoned is it? How long have those fibers sat through time and carbonized and oxidized, theres more to having a seasoned stave than a dry one and trick might just be in your title.  Leave it for a few seasons and you will have seasoned wood.

Moisture level is important for sure i do not discredit the common method for checking if a stave is workable im just trying to utilize the hidden linguistics to provoke some thought.

i cant pinpoint where i picked up this piece of information but i do believe the older the better.

[Gouge]

Thankyou dbeaver, that’s the thought train that’s scratching my itch, I’ll trim a stave down and leave it to season but I wonder what testing/indicators will tell me it’s worth doing. Will this carbonising/oxidising thing have performance values? Maybe make it stiffer? Looks like I’m going to have to get sciencey😩

[Kirkll]

I know for a fact the more seasoned i get myself, the stiffer i am in the morning.

The problem with that is my bark isnt as thick as it used to be....

[Gouge]

 🤣 I get that, I feel a lot of oxidation on my fibres too