Advice for white oak

[Blaflair2]

This is that 3x8, what's left of it. It made a good table top. What ya think?

[Blaflair2]

Also my glue line sucked. But it's still very strong

[H Rhodes]

I think any design works well with white oak.  My knee jerk reaction is to agree with Jawge about going 1 3/8 wide at the fades. I built some with 2" fades in my first attempts with w.o. and found them to be grossly overbuilt.   I do feel that heat treating a good bit of reflex is a big help - maybe 2 -3 inches before tillering.  I have never broken a white oak bow and have made some short bows with some extreme bend.  White oak can be prone to taking some set, but if you are careful with your tillering and give it a good deep heat treatment, white oak makes as good a bow as any wood.  I think it is as durable as hickory and as easy to steam/heat bend recurves as osage.  Pretty good bow wood all the way around.  Keep us posted with how it works out.

[bow101]

From what I understand about white oak is that it likes to take set, but responds great to heat treating. I know if I don't get it dry enough and keep it that way it will take set even with a great tiller, but getting it too dry will make it brittle. If it survives tillering to the point of sealing, I don't think it will ever get too dry in our climate stored indoors.

As far as taking set goes, most any wood will go there. The nice thing about WO is its strenght and durability.  I like it becasue of the open grain it soaks up the glue nicely. Great for backing.  If it's a little to dry give it a coat of mineral oil, at least it will soak into the outer grain perimiters.

[Wiley]

I will hrhodes. If this one does't work out there will be many more white oak attempts in the near future. I've seen a couple of your white oak bows. You get some very impressive bends out of some real short pieces of WO. .

Progress is slow at the moment, but soon our basement will become a well tooled bow/arrow/general woodworking shop, once that is accomplished work speed will likely increase. Been working on getting a arrow shaft jig prototyped. Got some fairly decent pieces of shafts, need to add some finishing guides to reduce wobble as the test pieces spun themselves apart but hopefully soon the prototype will be ready to be put together with some sturdier materials, bolted down and I can start making some good shafts.

[George Tsoukalas]

I was suggesting a bend in the handle bow with those dims where the handle is h=full width narrowing to 1/2" nocks. Jawge