One way of aligning limb tips / and general steaming ideas (missed points added)

[half eye]

Fellas,
    just straightened out a Osage shorty which had a bad lateral (across the broad sides, ie back and belly) dogleg bend. Got it straightened out very well..... and then a couple days ago got a couple questions about the very topic. Well it was too late to photograph and record the steps on that one.
    I found a sliver (belly split) of osage and cut it so that it is 1-1/4" wide and 1/2 inch thick, which gave it a lateral bend (first picture) I'm going to bend it sideways on the 1-1/4" surface. The next step is to set up my little stove top pan and tinfoil (pic 2) I then place my bending fulcrum to the correct distance from the cupboard to catch the bend where I want it (pic 3) Next is to put the rough out in the steam and cover for 5 minuets.......That's right 5 minuets. While I'm timing the steam I put on a pair of rubber palmed gloves, at exactly 5 minuets I took out the wood and stuck it under the cupboard toe-kick and bent it down while looking at it to judge it's straightness. (pic 4) as soon as it was partly cooled (a couple minuets) I let off of the wood and eyeballed for straight. Laid it one the floor and took a picture(5) same as # 1 so you can see the results.
     Pic 6  shows just how little bit of resins were leeched out of the wood. This is the tip I wanted to pass on......steam is only about 212 degrees, once the wood reach's that temp there is no reason to "cook" it longer cause it aint gonna get any hotter. If you cook/boil/steam it for an hour all ya gonna do is cook out all the resin's and every thing that makes bow wood, bow wood. That's one reason why you hear about recurves pulling out and all that other stuff, if ya cook it to mush don't expect too much back, eh.
     Just some food for thought. I wanted to pass along how I do it, that's all. If ya want to try it or not is up to you.
rich

I hope this helps some of you that were wondering about it.

[Peacebow_Coos]

That's an awesome trick thanks for sharing!  I like the use of the cupboard, that's my kind of jig.  That makes sense that the resins etc would leave the wood, after I steam yew for 45 min I get a reddish pink soup stuff, you know there's some important stuff in there somewhere!

[Fred Arnold]

Thanks Rich. never thought about it that way before and maybe that's why I have been having some troubles with tips holding. By the time I'm usually done boiling or steaming I could use the remains for stain.

[TRACY]

Nice little tutorial Rich! Thank you!

Tracy

[half eye]

Sorry fellas, my fore-sight aint as good as it once was

Forgot to add these bits of info:
1. The rubber gloves are only to afford a better grip, because when you bend the broad surface the wood is going to want to twist on you and you need to keep it as flat as possible.
2. Make sure that your fulcrum is "softer" than your bow-wood. You want to try and minimize any compression of the wet wood. (Also make sure you do this correction BEFORE you shape the limb taper so that will help get rid of any "damaged" wood)
3. Since the wood goes from steam to bend in about a second you will have time to make several "nibbles" on a long bend if necessary.
4. Never exceed 9 to 10 minuets of steam time, if the bow-wood wont bend enough after that time then work around it because it will not correct any further without cooking the wood. This method will work on most any roughed out bow up to 3/4 thick by 1-3/4 to 2" wide. I have not done bigger than that.
5. If you want to bend in recurves use no more than 5 minuets tops, 3 is usually more than enough.
6. Try to do as much by hand as possible, because you will be able to "feel" the bend occure and when it's had enough.....so you can stop before splitting the wood or raising a splinter.

sorry for not including that in the original
rich

[burchett.donald]

  It's dam sure straight Rich and your right about not needing to go any further steaming or heating once the wood is hot enough...