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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.