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PAULOWNIA ARCHERY BOWS
Making stuff with the wood that just
might save the world. By Dan Albert
When we took possession of our humble London
home, I was shocked to find that all the window
treatments had been removed. So we suffered
the rat-in-a-maze Ikea gantlet to get a good price
on new Venetian blinds. I hung the new blinds
immediately but it took me months to get around
to tailoring them by removing the extra slats.
As soon as I did, I realized that I had a maker’s
trifecta win in my hands: easily worked hardwood,
prefinished and free.
Photography by Dan Albert
First I built a new box for our kitchen plastic wrap,
then my daughter wanted some doll furniture. Next
was a laminated beam to repair our baby stroller,
and a few slats to serve as drawer dividers for the
clothes dresser I’d built ages ago but never quite
finished. But the pièce de résistance was a set of
archery bows that I whipped up to the delight of the
neighborhood kids.
Wonder Wood
It turns out that Ikea’s Lindmon blinds (product
#10092570 at
ikea.com/us) are made from
Paulownia elongata, an incredibly fast-growing
hardwood that originates in southern China and
Southeast Asia but has been bred for cultivation
around the world, including in the somewhat colder
climate of the southeastern United States (see
paulowniatrees.org).
Paulownia is made into everything from coffins
to stringed instruments. The wood is fine-grained,
virtually knot-free, and easily worked. It has the look
and feel of balsa, only slightly heavier with about
twice the strength and hardness.
I could tell the wood was something special, but
claims that paulownia is an environmentally friendly
“wonder tree” made me skeptical, so I did some
homework. I checked out the scientific literature
Make: 169
