Blacktail,
It’s my favorite bow wood. I love it!…………….
Now, that said, it’s a d**m pain trying to fine some that will work. I have been looking hard for a long time and that was the only piece I have found that I wanted to try to make a bow from, and it still scared the crap out of me as I was working on it. I was as amazed as anyone when I called it done and started shooting it. Further amazed that it has been shooting hard for two full seasons and many, many thousands of arrows now. I keep expecting it to fail in the classically demonstrative ERC way any day now. But, so far so good. And if it goes now, it doesn’t owe me anything. It’s been really fun and really pretty for quite a while and a lot of use.
As far as working the wood goes, a bow of ERC should be either fairly long or fairly wide, and probably backed with something stretchy, such as rawhide or sinew. Hickory or other wood can work, but if that is the case it should be pretty thin. If you can coax a bow out of it, it shoots really hard per pound of draw weight. It’s a really really fine wood.
