First go at heat treating, Need a lil help.

[chef-d405]

Hello once again to my fellow bowyers. So, I've decided to finish a hickory stave I roughed out to floor tiller some time ago, and I'd like to give a go at heat treating. I have gotten the necessary equipment amid begun work on handle and fades. Tillering is soon to follow. I plan on using a 2x4 caul to give it 2" of reflex. Limbs are parallel at 1 7/8 for about 2/3 of their length (don't have exact measurement at the moment) then will taper quickly to narrow outer limbs. If i tiller and narrow the outer limbs, will I scorch the back against the 2x4 when it gets narrower than the form? Should i leave some extra width and mass here until final tillering after heat treating? I'd like to hit target mass when the bow is finished. Although I plan on using this as both a hunting and target bow, I'm looking for a performer here.

[burchett.donald]

  Chef,
          Hickory lends itself well to heat treating/tempering the belly and heat bending. I would recommend more than 2" on your caul, maybe 4" would be worth heating in. Keep your hot gun moving back and forth until you see a nice dark gold color change and you should be OK. I usually start at the fades, heat and clamp as I go towards the tips. Usually don't concentrate to much heat at the narrow tips because I leave the last 4-6" stiff anyway. It takes a lot of heat to scorch the back, Keep moving back and forth 6-8" at a time as you work and clamp towards the tips, never scorched the back before. I think the 2" will pull out during tillering so go a little more. Hope this helps
                                                                                                                                  Don

[Drewster]

Chef, I agree with Don, you need more than 2" of reflex.  Like he said, I would try to get 3-4" of reflex.  Per Marc St Louis, it is good to heat treat once you have the stave floor tillered.  I would leave the tips wide until you heat treat.  I also like to leave the last 5" or 6" stiff so I don't heat treat that part of the limb either.  I also coat the edges of the limbs to be heat treated with Crisco to keep them from scorching.  I'm also careful to angle the heat gun towards the center of the limb so that the heat is not wrapping under the limb and scorching the back. 

Take your time and watch very, very carefully for the color change in the wood.  You want toasted.....NOT BURNT.  Black is not good.  Hope this helps and good luck.

[chef-d405]

Thx guys. Will do on heat treating floor tillered. I have a couple old bows i may strip and try to rework with heat treating also.

[crooketarrow]

  About 15 years ago I stoped heat treating other than the handle and tips. Not because you can't heat some woods fairly well.  But heat changes woods cell structure just like some bows have string follow the wood cells have been changed (crushed) although heat changes the cells differtly of course not as bad as crushed cells.

  It dose have affect on the bows life. But for average person that shoots a couple hundred arrows a years fine. But if you shoot 50,000 arrows you'll find out just how good a bow you've really made. Before people will go crazy saying this and that only because there not welling to change the ways they 'they've always did it.                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                         
I add my own reflex as soon as I can after cutting and splitting. I can put as much reflex as I want. Easy to do. I set up saw horse (you have to have a wooden floor). I put the horses so stave will lay there. I ratchet strap it to the and just crank as many inchs as I want. Just let it season like that. It you can tiller your reflex will not pull out like it can if heated.

  You have a reflexed stave that it's wood cells hav'nt been altered. Ofcorse you can go ahead and do as you've always have.

  Plus my way gets rid of on big step. Now you don't have to do it. Some people just like to do it. Nothing wrong with that.

  Heating old bows trying to get rid of string follow wont work.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

[Marc St Louis]

  About 15 years ago I stoped heat treating other than the handle and tips. Not because you can't heat some woods fairly well.  But heat changes woods cell structure just like some bows have string follow the wood cells have been changed (crushed) although heat changes the cells differtly of course not as bad as crushed cells.

  It dose have affect on the bows life. But for average person that shoots a couple hundred arrows a years fine. But if you shoot 50,000 arrows you'll find out just how good a bow you've really made. Before people will go crazy saying this and that only because there not welling to change the ways they 'they've always did it.                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                         
I add my own reflex as soon as I can after cutting and splitting. I can put as much reflex as I want. Easy to do. I set up saw horse (you have to have a wooden floor). I put the horses so stave will lay there. I ratchet strap it to the and just crank as many inchs as I want. Just let it season like that. It you can tiller your reflex will not pull out like it can if heated.

  You have a reflexed stave that it's wood cells hav'nt been altered. Ofcorse you can go ahead and do as you've always have.

  Plus my way gets rid of on big step. Now you don't have to do it. Some people just like to do it. Nothing wrong with that.

  Heating old bows trying to get rid of string follow wont work.
                                                           

Sorry but that is misinformation.  You should read some of the research that has been done on heat-treating. 

Plenty of old bows have been restored using dry-heat, today and yesterday.  In fact the experiments I did years ago was prompted by a short article in a PA magazine about dry heat being used to rejuvenate wood bows hundreds of years ago

[burchett.donald]

   +2 Marc,  I think it's a good choice in this application. And I revived some white wood bows by using heat. Collapsing the wood cells on the belly and lowering the R/H...Never got to 50,000 arrows though, LOL....
                                                                                                                                      Don