Jasonlester

Red oak will work. Any hardwood will. The thing you need to remember is that different woods need a diferent bow design to get the most out of the wood (and sometimes to work at all)

Osage is very design forgiving. You can make it wide and thin or narrow and flat. Osage doesn't care.

Hickory and oaks prefer to be wide I believe. The reason for this is the belly wood gets alot of compresion that may cause failure. Design is key with them.

There are several realy good resourses for building bows that if you do not have you should consider picking up.

First is Traditional Bowyers Bibles Vols 1,2,3 (4 is coming out this year if I remeber right)

Hunting the Osage Bow by Dean Torges is great also. Plus Dean is a great guy and is at lot of the big Traditional gatherings. (Cloverdale etc)

Like I said before Tradgang.com has a ton of info. TBB Vol 4 is being writen by some of the folks on their. Also some great people.

If you don't have access to Osage many other woods work. As well as sawn boards. TBB ( I forget which Vol) goes into selecting the right board. This is key to building one from a board. Backing is also a good idea if you are unsure of a board. I have used linen, but many other things work well too. Silk(very tough) Sinew(a great choice but a bit more work) and others.

I prefer an unbacked Osage. I have several with snake skin but that adds nothing to the back's strength.


Also if you find Osage or plan to buy it. Read up on how to select the right stave. Some trees have bows in them some don't.


BTW the way you make a bow is simple. Just remove everything that isn't a bow. LOL