I tell ya, this week just hasn't been going my way. Last Saturday we had some guests come over and I was showing some of my bows to one of them. He really took a liking to a wide flatbow that I had never quite finished. I wasn't comfortable letting him try it out because it wasn't fully finished or broken in yet, so we took it out to the garage and put it on the tillering tree. I had it tillered to about 65# @ 27" at the time. When exercising the limbs on the tree, POW, the thing exploded! No tears shed there, I had a gut feeling something wasn't right with that bow and was glad I didn't just hand it to the guy and have it explode on him while he drew it.
So Sunday I'm finishing up a 70#@28"/80#@30" red oak bow. It's been pulled on the tillering tree to 30" many times, but since it's too heavy for me to actually shoot, it never got properly broken in. I was nearly done finishing it, it had 5 coats of wiping varnish (Formby's Tung Oil Finish) and was looking really good. I decided to get the wife to take some photos of it while I drew it to full draw on the tillering tree. I'm exercising the limbs and hear a loud crack. Sure enough, a large splinter had lifted on the back. Unlike the flatbow, this one really bothered me because I had become quite attached to it (I know, big mistake). I glued the splinter down and, after I get the handle finished I'll string it up and hang it on the wall.
In retrospect, I think this bow would have survived just fine if I had left it at 70#@28" and didn't pull it to 30". Next extended draw red oak I make will be over 72" long.
Now let's fast forward to last night. I had been working on a simple flatbow that I was rushing to get done (yes, I was committing a cardinal sin for bowyers by
rushing and I paid the price). This one is another red oak board bow. 64" ttt, flatbow with 8" stiff handle/fades, shooting for 40-45#@28". Not too hard, right? Well, I got the tiller dead perfect.... except in my haste I didn't check to make sure the tiller was proper for this slightly shorter bow. The result was that the string angle permitted a max draw of 25". If I removed more wood to get the inner limbs bending the weight would drop well below the target weight, so I decide I'll recurve the tips. I've just started learning how to make bends, so this should be fun and educational.
I clamp one tip in a form and apply heat from a heat gun (after applying olive oil to the limb). After several minutes of heat I start putting
light pressure on the limb, trying to coax it down into the form. It's slowly bending and then crack, the limb just comes apart about 2" from the tip. It's a clean break straight through the wood.
My plan is to cut the other tip to size, so the new length will be roughly 60" ttt, and try to recurve the tips again. Do you think dry heat or steam heat would be better in this situation? If I try the heat gun again, I think I won't put ANY pressure on the bow and let gravity do all the work.
Is 60" too short for a red oak with an 8" stiff handle area and 40-45#@28"? Should I ditch the recurve plan and just try tillering it for more bend out of the fades?
It's just been one of those weeks
