Has anyone made selfbows with hickory heartwood?

Yesterday I split a short hickory log and ended up with several belly split billets that are all heartwood. Today I quickly got them to within a growth ring or three and sealed the backs with shellac. They have thin rings, about 1/16" thick.

Anybody have experience with them? All of the hickory selfbows I've made were all sapwood in the limbs.

Sure would be pretty..

Ye ol' triple split.

 

Neat...

Hickory heartwood is more brittle than the sapwood but I've never built a selfbow with hickory heartwood. I assume with a clean back and good tiller there shouldn't be a problem.

The heartwood sure has a nice color, but I have never tried using it, would make a beautiful bow though

That's what I've heard as well, Pat. I'll give it a try. If it breaks, I'll switch gears.

Now I'm wishing I would have tried to leave a couple sapwood rings on there. That would have looked nice, a couple sapwood rings and the rest heartwood. It would have looked a little like a yew stave. Especially with these thin rings. Oh well. Too late now.

If the heartwood doesn't work out for selfbows, I could always flatten them and back them with hickory or hard maple.

Hickory or  maple would be good backing options.

I have, Jeff. It was from a board. To the best of my knowledge it still together. My kid shot it for a year or so, then gave it to a friend. It was very light in physical weight.

Good. That's encouraging.

I have made some from boards and could not see any difference from sapwood  hickory. I have also made selfbows that were about half sapwood and half heartwood with the borderline going diagonally through the stave. These Hickory boards were imported here 1960-1970 and were used in ski production. I'm posting a link to a trilam with a thin tapered Hickory heartwood backing.
http://tradgang.com/noncgi/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=013196

That is a one dang fine bow Buemaker! Outstanding!    

Nice one Bue. That hickory heartwood seems to be handling the tension. How many arrows through it so far?

Couple of hundreds I guess, winter now so not much shooting outdoors and during tillering on the tree at least that amount ( I never keep count) I do not know which species of Hickory was imported all those years ago,but it is some heavy hard stuff.

Very good. Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.

I've backed with hickory heartwood with no problems as well.

I weight sample of heartwood and sapwood hickory from the same board and the heartwood was like ..85SG the sapwood was much lighter like .70SG.

II've neve made a heartwood selfbow, but I wouldn't hesitate either. I bet you can go a bit more narrow than a sapwood bow.

That would be a bonus since I prefer narrower bows.