|
History of Port
Orford Cedar |
||||||
|
Rose City Archery, Inc. Customer Service 541-572-6408 Monday - Friday 8:30 to 4:30 Pacific Time Order by Phone
Finished Arrows
Arrow
Building
Refinement Process
General
Recurve & Longbow Compound Bow Spine Weight Chart or send an
|
The history of Port Orford Cedar wood (Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana) predates man in North America by tens of thousands of years. Port Orford Cedar is a false cedar and is believed to have descended from the Japanese Hinoki Tree, which is highly valued in Japan. Seeds were adrift on the Japanese current and they landed in an area of the southern Oregon coast. As they took root and began to flourish they spread inland about eighty miles, south and north about fifty miles. The Siskiyou National Forest is largely made up of these magnificent trees, which have been prized for their straight grain and aromatic scent. The wood is also extremely resistant to insects and decay, it has been used for many things including: battery separators, mill work, boats, railroad ties and for the finest wood archery arrow shafts because of it's strength and straight grain. Port Orford Cedar has been the wood of choice for many traditional archers such as Howard Hill. Port Orford Cedar Oil (Rose of Cedar) is used all over the world today for aromatherapy, cosmetics, personal and environmental deodorizers, pet grooming products, insect repellents, cleaners and disinfectants. Port Orford Cedar Oil has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties as well as keeping bugs and insects away. These attributes combined with being an all natural, non-toxic repellent, makes Port Orford Cedar an ideal essential Oil. Rose City Archery, Inc. and Port Orford CedarWe are the largest manufacturer of Port Orford Cedar Shafts in the World today. Rose City Archery makes approximately 2.5 million wood arrow shafts per year and sales are growing every year. With the completion of our 25,000 sq. ft. plant in 1994 which included upgrades to all of our machinery, we turned our company into a state of the art wood arrow manufacturer. We have a two and 1/2 year supply of Port Orford Cedar wood on hand with more coming in every day. Rose City Archery, Inc. was founded in 1932 in Portland, Oregon, originally manufacturing archery bows as well as Port Orford Cedar arrows and has been in continuous operation ever since. Rose City Archery, Inc. now ships finished arrows, wood arrow shafting, accessories, oil and other Port Orford Cedar products world-wide. We are one of the few and by far the biggest manufacturer of Port Orford Cedar wood arrows and shafts as well as Port Orford Cedar oil in the world. Our by-products are sold as garden stakes, and the sawdust is sold for use in aroma therapy and for distilling Port Orford Cedar Oil which is sold as Rose of Cedar TM. We have very little waste. We have many employees, consisting of local men and women, several are second generation arrow industry employees and some have been with us more than 20 years.
We get our cedar wood from the US Forest Service, private wood products companies and private landowners, as salvaged wood, the supply is constant. Look for Rose City Archery, Inc. featured in archery magazines.
Natural
wood arrows, shafts, oil and other |
 |
||||
The Port Orford Cedar trees we use at Rose
City Archery, Inc. are all down trees that have been dead for up to
hundreds of years; some were killed in ancient forest fires, some are
uncovered from the construction of new cranberry bogs where they have
been buried for many years, some are from incidental logging
operations where the logs are salvaged. In most cases we
fly out the Port Orford Cedar logs with helicopters (see picture) so
that no motorized equipment goes into the forest, the loggers have to
pack their saws and equipment in on their backs or by mule or horse,
we do not use live or fresh cut trees!
