winter cut hickory bark removal

[Lee Lobbestael]

In mbb 1 in the section of cutting and curing wood it mentions to remove the bark from winter cut hickory you can put it in a hot steamy shower for 20 minutes and then peel it off. Does the author mean to actually let the water run over the stave or does he mean to let it sit in the steam?

[burchett.donald]

   That's to remove cambium layer.
                                                       Don

[kevinsmith5]

I'd likento hear any advice on this myself. If I can get a head start on drying some ahead of spring I'd love it.

[sadiejane]

last hickory i cut was in late winter. split and sealed it immediately, left it in the garage a cupla weeks.
tapped it with a hammer and the bark all just came off in one big hunk

[rps3]

I put hickory in a hot shower with the water running over it for about 1/2 hr, with the bark on, and it does make it easier to remove. I rotate the stave at 15 minutes.

My wife is never too keen about this practice.

[Lee Lobbestael]

i'll have to give this a try  while my wife is out!

[BowEd]

Good question Lee and good luck.Otherwise it's a slow careful removal if you want that nice primitive look on the back,and I've never had any winter cut hickory bark ever just fall off myself.Spring and summer yes and pulled off in strips.I've heard of guys lightly pounding on the bark to loosen it etc.but that has never worked well for me either,and I do a lot of hickory here.Maybe there is something I can learn about this yet.

[Lee Lobbestael]

Well i'll keep you guys updated. Probably will cut some hickory this weekend when I get some time

[jamie]

Been scraping a lot of hickory backs lately. Gonna have to try this. Although I find it easy to scrape the bark off. Ihowever is like to pull it off in long strips. I've been experimenting with hickory bark for bow strings. It's incredibly strong stuff. Made a 2' string with a thickness comparable to dacron. Hung a 70lb weight from it and dropped the weight and the string didn't break. Maybe the steaming would allow me to pull longer strands off so I won't have to splice in so many pieces to get a full bow string.