Eucalyptus

I cut the Eucalyptus limb down to a useable length. There may just about be a bow lurking between the knots and bends. I painted the cut ends to stop it splitting and started to debark it with the draw knife. The bark is very thick and wet with a shiny outer surface and I soon found that once down to the wood the bark was lifting off fairly evenly. I got an old decorating knife under it and was levering and stripping it off in long leathery slabs.
The bark came of in great strips spiralling down the limb as I stripped it off which indicates the grain is probably spiral too. Twisted grain is no good for making a bow, but I shall persevere with it as it will be fun to make some sort of bow from a tree I've planted myself. I might try pounding the bark too to see if it splits into useable fibres to make a string which would be satisfyingly 'primitive'.