I went to a specialty lumber yard yesterday to try and find some hickory to use as backing.

They had a ton of the stuff but after looking for a board with nice straight grain for a 1/2 an hour I gave up.

My question is how straight does the grain on a hickory board have to be to be used for backing?

What is considered acceptable?

Thanks

Tenbrook

Ideally the straighter the better but I have used hickory backing strips with terrible violations and never had a back failure.

Here's a hickory backing with multiple run outs (10) and it is still shooting years later.

   

Just be sure and round over the edges and burnish them real good. I used a socket to burnish. Add some pressure and just rub the heck out of the edges. It makes them a little harder by compressing the fibers.

 

 
 

Be sure of the source of your wood also. As long as it was handled properly off the stump you should be OK with some runoffs. The stuff I had looked like what Joe was using.
 Being a whitewood it doesn't take hickory long to deteriorate...only a few days on the ground will make it useless for backings and selfbows.