New heat treating method??

[bradsmith2010]

probably not gonna buy any dvds,,
I am happy just making my wood bows,,that being said, I am always pleased to learn something that primitive guys did to make there bows better,, if I want something impervios to water,, I will shoot a fiberglass bow,,, but I really enjoy the challenge of hunting with wood bow that is effected with the elements, its part of the challenge,, ok I dont use a sinew string,, but hey,, I barley know how to make one,,,

[JW_Halverson]

I strongly suspect he is somehow making liberal use of viscous liquid lubricant sourced from the finest Ophidian reptiles.  Best taken with sodium chloride particles.

[Shannon]

    I read all or most of the postings and it's clear a couple of things need to be clarified for emphasis.
    I am very familiar with everything in the Traditional Bowyers Bible volumes, and I genuinely respect the quality of work involved, and all those who did that work.
      If I didn't have something new to discuss in 2019, there would be nothing to talk about.
      This also means what I am doing is -- for the 21st century -- something nobody has done (or at least not enough to have written about it themselves) for many decades.
     My motivation was very clear and focused -- an interest in exactly what Native Americans did. It's well documented they liked trees killed by fire and/or subjecting entire staves to prolonged heat, for example hanging wood high in a lodge, longhouse, etc., over rising heat from a fire.
   This means the whole point was to fire-harden an entire stave, nothing less than that, and test the results.
    After doing this with 30 bows, I am satisfied the results are consistent, and anyone else can get the same results if they follow the same procedure. 
    The results are:
   --  Hydrophobic wood. Even with no varnish or any other finish, the bows resist taking on increased moisture content in humid conditions. The finished bows show that even if abused by water itself, they return to an optimum 10 percent moisture content far more quickly than a routine piece of wood. 
    --  The resulting bows also yield a draw weight about 35% higher than an otherwise identical bow using untreated wood. This greatly reduces the bow's mass weight in relation to draw weight. The improvement to efficiency is considerable.
   -- And yeah, less string follow. No surprise there. 
   And as to exactly how it's done, the DVD will address that. 

[Badger]

  Thank You for posting that, my recent interest has also been in prolonged heat. I need to find out optimum temps and minimum times so it will require some testing. You have every right to sell what you feel you have established. In all fairness to you I do see a lot more books and DVD's coming out. We will still continue to share our knowledge here and hopefully your methods will be looked at and hopefully improved on over time.

[Deerhunter21]

    I read all or most of the postings and it's clear a couple of things need to be clarified for emphasis.
    I am very familiar with everything in the Traditional Bowyers Bible volumes, and I genuinely respect the quality of work involved, and all those who did that work.
      If I didn't have something new to discuss in 2019, there would be nothing to talk about.
      This also means what I am doing is -- for the 21st century -- something nobody has done (or at least not enough to have written about it themselves) for many decades.
     My motivation was very clear and focused -- an interest in exactly what Native Americans did. It's well documented they liked trees killed by fire and/or subjecting entire staves to prolonged heat, for example hanging wood high in a lodge, longhouse, etc., over rising heat from a fire.
   This means the whole point was to fire-harden an entire stave, nothing less than that, and test the results.
    After doing this with 30 bows, I am satisfied the results are consistent, and anyone else can get the same results if they follow the same procedure. 
    The results are:
   --  Hydrophobic wood. Even with no varnish or any other finish, the bows resist taking on increased moisture content in humid conditions. The finished bows show that even if abused by water itself, they return to an optimum 10 percent moisture content far more quickly than a routine piece of wood. 
    --  The resulting bows also yield a draw weight about 35% higher than an otherwise identical bow using untreated wood. This greatly reduces the bow's mass weight in relation to draw weight. The improvement to efficiency is considerable.
   -- And yeah, less string follow. No surprise there. 
   And as to exactly how it's done, the DVD will address that. 

hmm, untill i can see your results in other bows with #s i will still be wondering and suspicious . but if what you say works and  is true, let me be the first one to say that I was being an overglorified brat and jerk that thought he knew what he was talking about  . If your ok with me asking, (or challenging, whichever way you take it) maybe you make 2 sister bows from the same stave. same shape, size, character, draw weight, as close as you can get it, post them and the differences with complete honesty and care well see how it turns out and if this new method is really all it says it is. you dont need to tell us the specifics, (like how your new process works) just the steps (like just saying i did the new process). i think that would be pretty cool. maybe find out which white wood it works better on, if it helps osage too, their are just a lot of question that we could use having answered. I think thats why we've been kinda upset, we have had to guess. but untill we have solid proof, I dont trust it.

[Marc St Louis]

    I read all or most of the postings and it's clear a couple of things need to be clarified for emphasis.
    I am very familiar with everything in the Traditional Bowyers Bible volumes, and I genuinely respect the quality of work involved, and all those who did that work.
      If I didn't have something new to discuss in 2019, there would be nothing to talk about.
      This also means what I am doing is -- for the 21st century -- something nobody has done (or at least not enough to have written about it themselves) for many decades.
     My motivation was very clear and focused -- an interest in exactly what Native Americans did. It's well documented they liked trees killed by fire and/or subjecting entire staves to prolonged heat, for example hanging wood high in a lodge, longhouse, etc., over rising heat from a fire.
   This means the whole point was to fire-harden an entire stave, nothing less than that, and test the results.
    After doing this with 30 bows, I am satisfied the results are consistent, and anyone else can get the same results if they follow the same procedure. 
    The results are:
   --  Hydrophobic wood. Even with no varnish or any other finish, the bows resist taking on increased moisture content in humid conditions. The finished bows show that even if abused by water itself, they return to an optimum 10 percent moisture content far more quickly than a routine piece of wood. 
    --  The resulting bows also yield a draw weight about 35% higher than an otherwise identical bow using untreated wood. This greatly reduces the bow's mass weight in relation to draw weight. The improvement to efficiency is considerable.
   -- And yeah, less string follow. No surprise there. 
   And as to exactly how it's done, the DVD will address that.

Interesting. Treating an entire stave is something I did not do in my research, at least not on purpose.  The times I did accidentally toast the back did not give me any confidence that doing so would give me a reliable bow.

The hanging of wood, or a bow, in a lodge was not to heat-treat it, you need a lot more heat than that.  It was to keep the wood dry.  Whether natives actually did temper their bows is debatable, there are no known records of them doing this.

I remember making an Elm recurve for a friend in AR who brought the bow up to MoJam, this was in early 2000.  He told me after that he had a few of his friends pull the bow back to full draw and hold it there and when he took the bow down it still held most of its reflex, the bow had several inches of reflex to begin with.  The weather at the time was quite humid

Quite frankly I am skeptical of your claims since I didn't see anything on the videos I watched to indicate an improvement in performance over a regular heat-treated bow.  A reduction in mass is also realized with a regularly heat-treated bow.

[Santanasaur]

Shannon, thanks for clearing things up. Speaking clearly about your process like this is the kind of thing that makes me want to buy your dvd. I’m sorry I called you names, I was abraded by the marketing tone on your site and recent video but i was still out of line.. Personally I think you would have better dvd sales if you approached your marketing in this kind of clear way. That’s just me and now that we’re better friends  I hope i can raise suspicion without raising dust. Maybe you’re the only one heat treating with your technique but personally  i’ve heat treated entire bows at once and i would be very surprised if others havent. I’ve done it over long beds of coals, usually a limb at a time but also whole  bows. I’m sure there’s  more to how you do it. The maelming  process for skis can use entire skis at once and some of these craftsmen are also bowyers. Fire hardening is an established and totally unforgotten process, it even has a very detailed wikipedia page. These aren’t fringe ideas on archery or primitive technology forums. It sounds like you have a worthwhile process worth teaching and  selling, but I think that it would be much more attractive without the mysticism about it being long forgotten. I hope my suggestions aren’t taken the wrong way and that your dvd and bows come out well. Cheers, Dan

[PatM]

  There's   documented info regarding Eurasian tribes heat treating bow belly material over open fire and rubbing pitch  into the heated material.   Even photographs showing the process.

[sleek]

I have heat treated a green bow blank all night long over a camp fire, rotating it like a chicken on a spit, and had a cured bow the next morning. It was persimmon and was a fantastic bow. Very little set, and quite naturally it was a short bow. I attributed the wood to having all the benefits of the properties it had, not considering the possibility of the 10 hour heat treat I gave it as It was my first year of bow making.

[bradsmith2010]

   I feel like the guys making bows thousands of years ago,, did things that have been forgotten,,,doesnt seem that much of a stretch that someone would heat the whole green stave to get a bow made faster,, so he could eat,,
maybe fire harden the belly,, even if it was by accident at first,, to think no one ever tried that seems more an impossiblilty,, but as said nothing documented from back then,, so I just use my imagination,,
I have an elm sapling in the back I have been eyeing,, if I cut it ,, I will try the fire curing for 8 hours or so and see how it goes,, should be fun,,,I think I will string it a bit backwards to prevent warping as it drys,,
sorry for the ramble ,, but when I think about humans building pyramids and such,, it just doesnt seem impossible that they made bows,, equal to our newly discovered techniques,,
     
    to me its like being a drummer and thinking you discovered a new rhythm,, go back to africa and you will see that rhythm is there for thousands of years,, maybe forgotten here or in modern music,, not invented here,, but just rediscovered,, Music is alot like bow making,, People think the last 50 years is representive in both,, but its just a very small part of what has been done,,and forgotten,,,, I think I drank too much coffee

[SLIMBOB]

When I was doing a lot of brain tanning, we would hang our hides and our bows high in the teepee. The smoke water proofed (in a manner) both, not so much the heat.

[Nasr]

It seems though the method might be different but the end result is the same. Wether you are using heat gun or coals from a fire the bow wood is going through the same thing. Even if your method was different I still wouldn’t call it revolutionary. At best you might have slightly improved on some of the work that has already been done by people here on PA. I’ve read about fire killed trees a few years back so that is nothing new. I do hope you have something that will improve on what’s been done but I still am very skeptical.

[sleek]

It seems though the method might be different but the end result is the same. Wether you are using heat gun or coals from a fire the bow wood is going through the same thing. Even if your method was different I still wouldn’t call it revolutionary. At best you might have slightly improved on some of the work that has already been done by people here on PA. I’ve read about fire killed trees a few years back so that is nothing new. I do hope you have something that will improve on what’s been done but I still am very skeptical.

At this point  a slight improvement over already known work is BIG, because I really feel it will be hard to get much better than we already are. Just to be fair...

[Nasr]

It seems though the method might be different but the end result is the same. Wether you are using heat gun or coals from a fire the bow wood is going through the same thing. Even if your method was different I still wouldn’t call it revolutionary. At best you might have slightly improved on some of the work that has already been done by people here on PA. I’ve read about fire killed trees a few years back so that is nothing new. I do hope you have something that will improve on what’s been done but I still am very skeptical.

At this point  a slight improvement over already known work is BIG, because I really feel it will be hard to get much better than we already are. Just to be fair...

No I agree with what you are saying might point is the foundation has been established before and isn't this mystical thing that we dont know about. Heat has been used before its nothing new and he might have something that improves on that but its that foundation that made it possible. I am just a skeptical person maybe I am wrong to think like that and I could definitely be wrong In fact I hope I am only way to better myself is to learn.

[PatM]

I have seen several references to bows made by natives using fire to quick cure.   There was an account of an Apache who was captured and disarmed and then set free.  Someone watched and photographed as he re- armed himself.    One picture shows him working a stave over fire.

 Alaskan Natives were said to work green birch in a fire and Doug Theiner wrote an article for PA showing a quickly made bow using the process.  One added benefit is that a stave can be winter cut and the heating process will move moisture into the inner bark and allow it to be readily removed.