massaging out set in bow after several hours of shooting your self bow

[Philipp A]

Thanks willie, I have read the article and I and I think it warrants further discussion as to the impact of > MFA on "springiness" of the wood (I have no idea and his sample size of 1 is of course not scientific which he readily admits).

In the scientific articles to which I have provided the links to, it indicates that > MFA = less compression strength and stiffness (negatively correlated) and also has all the other negative traits he listed (moisture uptake, shrinkage, > checking etc). The idea of making a thicker bow due to the reduced stiffness and compression strength of juvenile wood when using saplings (or using the first 20-30 growth rings in mature wood) might have merit if it were to increase the "springiness" of the wood.

I think what would counteract that is that the radius of the growth rings would be tighter in those first 30 growth rings and would produce a more heavily crowned bow.

Interesting discussion for sure and I am interested to hear what your opinion and that of others is on this topic.

[Badger]

 Philip, I wish I knew how to read those charts. When you talk about springiness in the wood it is actually very definable. You have work in and work out as you do in any spring minus hysteresis. The Hysteresis can vary greatly from bow to bow and wood to wood depending on how well the bow was made and how dry the wood is. A dry piece of wood has very little hysteresis until it has been over stressed. Almost all woods are just about equal in springiness as long as they are working within their elastic limits and are equally dry.

[willie]

I have noticed set acting differently in hardwoods and softwoods. Some larch I have tillered recently seems to take set early on, but recovers from more set than I am used to in hardwoods. Of course designs utilizing compression wood for the belly exhibit this trait even more so. The merit for differing woods depends on your intended use, I suppose. At the one extreme, Badgers preference for a bow that takes some set, (but doesn't go through a recovery process), might be what works well for his flight shooting. On the other hand, the bow shown below is a compression wood belly, and needs to recover after a sustained full draw.




 

[Marc St Louis]

This website has something interesting to say in the comments about Osage ww.wood-database.com/osage-orange/, sorry but even though it doesn't appear to be a commercial site you will have to fill in the rest of the link.  I especially like the comment American French 

[PatM]

At the time it was given that moniker the French still had designs on making America theirs. lol

[tattoo dave]

So I'll apologize up front for this. I haven't read any of the many comments so maybe it's already been mentioned, but...

There's gotta be all kinds of jokes about massaging your stick. 

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Tattoo Dave

[Marc St Louis]

So I'll apologize up front for this. I haven't read any of the many comments so maybe it's already been mentioned, but...

There's gotta be all kinds of jokes about massaging your stick. 

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Tattoo Dave

Maybe so but not on this board, not unless you want to remain a member that is