Hi - down here in New Zealand, there appears to be a chronic lack of good bow making wood/lumber.

I can get my hands on lengths of Ash (for a hideous price), but not any Osage, Yew and lemonwood etc.

Id like to try my hand at making my first flatbow - or longbow.

Any suggestions? - perhaps laminating some Bamboo on the back of the Ash?

thanks
Paul
Whangaparaoa
New Zealand

if it's a board you can back it with paper, linen, burlap, or rawhide. ash is good tension wise so all the above should work fine

Can you get your hands on any Eucalyptus. I know there are several Aussies on here who do self bows using Australian woods. Don't know what these woods availability is in NZ but may be easier to get and cheaper than imported american woods.

any fruit trees or mulberry,check out
http://onemississipp.googlepages.com/bowwoods
it's a great source of info on trees for bows

gday mate, belive u me  understand that problem alll to well, from what i understand of NZ native trees, they have the potential to be as dense as some of the aussie trees so dont fret, use what you can find in your local tmber shop a good way to go would be spotted gum (i donno if u have it there) but also check out  www.ozbow.net  its just like this site but for aussies since we "officialy" have no osage, yew ,hickory,lemonwood or any of the traditional bow woods but as you get more and more into the loop with your local timber groups you may find that there is SOME osage around, i recently discovered that australia has some osage and hawthorn arount the old seatlements, brought over by american settelers (thanks guys) see you on ozbow mate!