Stave drying and controlled checking?

[simk]

Hi there

From my apple tree I have some big branches left and I'm still unsure on how to dry them best. They have a diameter of about 5-6". How to dry them? Saw it in staves and seal it? Leave the bark on or debark? Everybody seems to have similar problems and questions with drying worthy bowwood...

Now: What about drying the whole logs with bark on and just cut some slots along the staves and at the ends where you intentionally like it to check and loose tensions? Doing so the stave will probebly only check exactly where you cut the slots and where its supposed to check?

How about this - i'd call it the controlled checking method? Any expieriences? Dumb newbie-idea?

Thanx for your thoughts

[Pat B]

I doubt you can control the checking well enough to achieve a good stave or two. Leaving the logs in tack isn't a good option either. I think your best bet is to split out the staves reduce them to floor tiller stage, remove the bark, seal the ends and back and bind or clamp them to a form to dry. You can use 2x4s as forms and after they are dry you can heat them and form them into reflex or whatever style you want. Mother Nature isn't into making bows so leaving this up to her is not a good idea.
 Taking a log or stave or whatever to floor tiller stage is a lot easier while the wood is still green. Have you kept those apple logs(limbs) in a protected area out of the weather and off the ground?

[DC]

I'm with Pat here. Also you have to plan your drying around your local humidity. If you live in a humid area you can go a little fast and loose with the rules. If you live in a dry area you have to be more conservative. I remove the bark on all my staves except Yew. With Yew, because of my local humidity, I can get away with standing it in the corner and forgetting it. All the rest, the bark comes off, and I seal the back and ends with a couple of coats of shellac. Pretty much all the bow wood around here except Yew has smooth thin bark so that's not a chore.

[simk]

Thanx Guys - I really appreciate your remarks!

It's clear that it would be best to rough it out for drying - less wood - less tension...also it would be good to clamp em down...

...still human nature is always looking for convenience and avoid work. In fact I have so many apple staves at the moment, it's impossible to rough out all of them within a resonable time. I just don't have the time to do it.

But: I'm still pretty sure the log would exactly check where you put a slot through. I also heard that people dry round staves with a slot at the ends in the belly orientation exactly for this reason. I will try it with one of them. The rest will probably be split by chainsaw and dried with sealed ends.

But2: Wouldn't leaving the bark on also prevent checking the back? I could really imagine that the bark would slow down the drying process at the back and protect it from drying out to fast...(On the other hand, there will be more issues with borers and it will be a pain to remove the dried bark - i know). I will also try that with some of the staves and see if they develop less checks...

The drying process will take place in a humid and cold cellar for the first months.

Cheers

[bassman]

yep, what Pat said.

[Pat B]

Leaving the bark on will slow down the drying making it less apt to check but insects lay their eggs in the bark of their hosts and when they hatch they usually cause damage to the wood below. Removing the bark and sealing the back will eliminate this possibility. Wood glue, paint, wax or shellac all work well to seal the stave. I like shellac because it is easily removed with light scraping or a wipe down with denatured alcohol. I keep a can of spray shellac on my work bench all the time because any time I expose a new back ring, whether the wood is seasoned or not I coat with shellac. I've had staves that had been in the dry for more than 10 years check after a new ring was exposed.

[DC]

Here are some pictures of a small Plum sapling stave I'm drying. I cut it last March. I roughed it out on the bandsaw. Coated the back and ends with shellac. It's been in a plastic tube for six months or so and standing in the shop since then. You can see the splits in the handle where it was left full size. They are unsightly but it's fairly normal. If you had cut a slot in the handle it would have opened up like a clam. I've done it thinking I could cut a filler strip. It didn't work out to be that easy.
   You can see where I didn't cut it right to the pith, it split to the pith. Again, not a problem because most or all of that wood will come off in tillering. The other limb was cut to the pith and has no splits. This shows how much easier it is if you can cut the stave right down the middle. If your stave is about 3" dia in the handle area you can split/cut it in half and still have enough wood to make a handle.
  One of the advantages of using large logs is that when you split them you are reducing them by half or more and that gives the wood somewhere to go/move. Saplings and small dia branches are way tougher just because of that handle section.

[DC]

Now: What about drying the whole logs with bark on and just cut some slots along the staves and at the ends where you intentionally like it to check and loose tensions? Doing so the stave will probebly only check exactly where you cut the slots and where its supposed to check?

How about this - i'd call it the controlled checking method? Any expieriences? Dumb newbie-idea?

Thanx for your thoughts

This may work if the stave was nice and straight and the slot could reach to or close to the pith. With crooked staves like yours it would be tough to get the slot to end close to the pith and as a result any check that started could wander. Anyway these look big enough to get two bows out of each if you split/saw them. This will save you a lot of grief.

[simk]

Thanx PatB for sharing your expierence with us newbies and preaching basics again and again with patience (-; I'm using a non waterproof white wood glue...should be easy to wash down when working the staves.

DC: You've really got an illustrative pic for every bow building situation (-; thanx. If you can't avoid checking it might be good to control it - that was my thought. The handle-section on small staves still remains a mystery...

I will now try different ways of drying with these apple staves: Debarked, semi-debarked, not debarked. Whole logs with slots - half logs - staves. In 3 to 4 years I will be able to tell what worked best (-;

What seems very curiuos is, that the semi-beraked staves turned into bright yellow after sealing with wood glue....?!

What certainly works is washing down the bark with the power washer (-; thanx for the tip bj!!!

Cheers 

[DC]

I'm not so sure about the water soluble glue. I wonder how impermeable it is? The idea here is to keep the water from going out the ends and back and force it to go out the belly. If it stays soft or sticky I would replace it with a waterproof glue or shellac. The yellow will just be the glue reacting with the sap. My Plum turned dark reddish brown when I put shellac on it.
It's a shame to risk a stave or two but the way you are doing it is really the only way to find the optimum method for drying in your area. Keep your eye on them, especially for the next couple of weeks, and if you see a check paint that area and other similar areas with something waterproof. Try to fill the check with the glue/whatever.