New heat treating method??

[SLIMBOB]

Yes sir.  I heat treated a Hackberry bow over coals some years ago.  Great little bow that took no set.  The bed was only big enough to do one limb at a time.  I dont see anything really....new or revelatory.  If in fact that is all there is.  I have not watched it.

[PatM]

For many years people just went by "it works" and played around with cook times and settled on what worked best for them.   The science of it was not often discussed but papers referring to what potentially goes on were frequently linked to.

  I posted this or a similar article a number of times in the past.  This shows the chemical changes and explains water resistance.   I guess if you want all the info in one place,  spend away.
     
ttp://ww w.coford.ie/media/coford/content/publications/projectreports/cofordconnects/cofordconnectsnotes/00675CCNPP44Revised091216.pdf

[Marc St Louis]

The thing with heat-treating is that everyone has their own way and length of time doing it.  I've used the bed of coals several times as well

[wstanley]

    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.

I see this type of comment over and over. Not giving credit to Native American knowledge, just because its not written out in a book somewhere word for word that they did this or that.

You are talking about a culture with more knowledge of wood than you and I. You are talking about a culture who uses fire more than you and I. You are talking about human beings with the same cognitive capabilities as you and I. Of course they knew what prolonged heat exposure did to woods. Out where I live (Sierra Nevadas) natives labor was preferred over other ethnicities to build (not engineer) the massive tressels the logging railroads needed to span across huge creeks and drainages because their craftsmanship with wood was superior.

No one on this website nor this fella Shannon has done this first - guaranteed without evidence ; )

[PatM]

You can't get carried away with cognitive abilities matching  and  use of a material as thorough knowledge of said material.

[wstanley]

But that's how I explain my knowledge of a material; through the use of it and my own capabilities? I see your point, maybe; more goes into it not just tradition/long term use? Can you elaborate?

Again, we are drawing back (no pun intended) on the capabilities of Natives: their tradition and intimate relationship with the material cannot be forgotten.

Its just a common theme on here I feel when Native perspective into something is talked about: how could they do this or that, they must have had some help, or it was accomplished on accident, etc, etc. In fact I believe I read on here that north American horn bow technology was somehow brought over by the Turks? Incredible - no way, it was an isolated invention by the natives! Even the title Primitive Archer; primitive give a sense of "backwards" not fully there yet (not against the title just want to make a point). We are all only as capable as our present technology provides, in one thousand years we will laugh at today's computers. But now, they are the bees knees.

Just yesterday I was on a thread for this website talking about Natives and if they spined their arrows. I think the individual was referring to Ishi, that he never took time to spine his arrows. It was inconceivable to this individual that Ishi did not do this. I replied of course he did, just not the same way you and I would today.

Just to be clear, my comment started with Marcs comment that we don't have any evidence that they heat treated their bows. I think if we are finding success with it today, they were as well back then. 

Great thread, I will always backup native knowledge : )

[billy]

Hey guys!!  Long time no talk!
For those who may not know me, I'm Billy Berger, and I was involved with production of the video.  I've been watching this thread for a while, reading what everyone has written.  And I wanted to clear up a few things about this new fire hardened bow technique.   

First off, I don't know as much as Keith Shannon does about this technique, since he's the one who came up with it and has been experimenting with fire hardening bows for over 2 years.  I was brought in as a cameraman and editor.  That's my expertise.  I was shown the technique and filmed it.  I have a pretty good idea of how it's done, although everyone will have their own way of fire hardening and there is no ONE way to do it.  However, Keith's experiments have shown, at least for him, that using traditional dry heat from charcoal or a fire gives better results as opposed to using a grill or some other modern contraption. 

I have seen, and filmed, fire hardened white wood bows outshoot Osage bows that pulled 5 lbs more, and I've seen fire hardened bows match, and even surpass the speed of fiberglass traditional bows of the same draw weight.  Some folks questioned the accuracy of the draw length we shot these bows at during the chronograph tests.  The bows were secured, with clamps, to a shooting table and Keith had precise draw lengths noted on the table to be sure he drew the bows precisely to the draw length indicated on the video.  Although you can't see it on the video, there were marks indicated on the shooting table.  Of course he drew the bows by hand because that's what we had; the only way to have been pinpoint accurate would have been to use a precision shooting machine with a predetermined draw length and mechanical release.  But the number of test shots we did (and many didn't make it on the video due to time constraints), showed that the speeds we got were quite consistent.  Precision shooting machines would likely give similar results in speed tests, though there might be a difference of 2 or 3 FPS in either direction. 

Keith really torture tested these bows and put them through their paces because he wanted to be certain that his results were consistent, accurate, and repeatable.  He wanted to be sure this wasn't just a fluke.  And every time he's made these bows he's been greeted with the same results.  He's got a lot of credibility in the hunting industry and there's no way he'd ruin that by making false claims about the performance of fire hardened white wood bows without proving it to himself.  He repeated to me personally, many times, that he wanted to be sure that what he was claiming was true, and that the speed results he was getting were accurate.  I saw them for myself and I've shot his fire hardened bows...and they're fast.  I'm so confident in their abilities that I'm currently working on a fire hardened hickory bow that I plan on taking to South Africa next year on my first ever African Plains game bowhunt.               

[PatM]

But that's how I explain my knowledge of a material; through the use of it and my own capabilities? I see your point, maybe; more goes into it not just tradition/long term use? Can you elaborate?

Again, we are drawing back (no pun intended) on the capabilities of Natives: their tradition and intimate relationship with the material cannot be forgotten.

Its just a common theme on here I feel when Native perspective into something is talked about: how could they do this or that, they must have had some help, or it was accomplished on accident, etc, etc. In fact I believe I read on here that north American horn bow technology was somehow brought over by the Turks? Incredible - no way, it was an isolated invention by the natives! Even the title Primitive Archer; primitive give a sense of "backwards" not fully there yet (not against the title just want to make a point). We are all only as capable as our present technology provides, in one thousand years we will laugh at today's computers. But now, they are the bees knees.

Just yesterday I was on a thread for this website talking about Natives and if they spined their arrows. I think the individual was referring to Ishi, that he never took time to spine his arrows. It was inconceivable to this individual that Ishi did not do this. I replied of course he did, just not the same way you and I would today.

Just to be clear, my comment started with Marcs comment that we don't have any evidence that they heat treated their bows. I think if we are finding success with it today, they were as well back then. 

Great thread, I will always backup native knowledge : )

  Ishi wasn't even aware that arrows rotated.   

[wstanley]

But that's how I explain my knowledge of a material; through the use of it and my own capabilities? I see your point, maybe; more goes into it not just tradition/long term use? Can you elaborate?

Again, we are drawing back (no pun intended) on the capabilities of Natives: their tradition and intimate relationship with the material cannot be forgotten.

Its just a common theme on here I feel when Native perspective into something is talked about: how could they do this or that, they must have had some help, or it was accomplished on accident, etc, etc. In fact I believe I read on here that north American horn bow technology was somehow brought over by the Turks? Incredible - no way, it was an isolated invention by the natives! Even the title Primitive Archer; primitive give a sense of "backwards" not fully there yet (not against the title just want to make a point). We are all only as capable as our present technology provides, in one thousand years we will laugh at today's computers. But now, they are the bees knees.

Just yesterday I was on a thread for this website talking about Natives and if they spined their arrows. I think the individual was referring to Ishi, that he never took time to spine his arrows. It was inconceivable to this individual that Ishi did not do this. I replied of course he did, just not the same way you and I would today.

Just to be clear, my comment started with Marcs comment that we don't have any evidence that they heat treated their bows. I think if we are finding success with it today, they were as well back then. 

Great thread, I will always backup native knowledge : )

  Ishi wasn't even aware that arrows rotated.

And your point? He also thought a certain paint color on his arrows brought him more accuracy.

This is my point exactly, putting down native knowledge because its not how you would do it. Or you simply don't understand it.

[PatM]

     My point is  that this would be an example of lack of knowledge.

 Arrows rotate and paint doesn't influence accuracy

[maitus]

 
I have a pretty good idea of how it's done, although there are still some trade secrets that Keith hasn't divulged...even to me.

And what's the point to buy this DVD if that fire treating method doesn't work without those secrets ?

[wstanley]

What does Ishi gain in knowing his arrow spins?  My point is there is no harm or foul to think your arrow doesn't spin, just as its fine to think red makes your arrow more accurate.

No gain or loss in my book in thinking "red" makes your arrow fly more accurately. I'm sure we all have our own little quirks when it comes to archery. I used to play college baseball and I swore having a little bit longer nails made me throw the ball more accurately. I did get made fun of course, but I never cut my nails before a game.

None of these things take away from Ishi's knowledge.

Once again, I find it comical that along this whole thread people are saying I did this first (in regards to heat treating), no I was doing this 15 years ago, on and on. Shannon provided pretty good evidence in the ethnographic record that Indians were heat treating their bows/staves/trees in the southeast. Its funny too, because wouldn't heat treating your bow be very helpful in a very humid environment? Never heard of heat treating out west where its dry??

We get a little full of ourselves as "modern" people thinking we are the first to do this or that.


 

[PatM]

 They are not saying that they were the first, merely that they had already done it as a natural progression of heat treating being re-discovered  18 years ago in an old re-print article of Ye Sylvan Archer.

[DC]

I think the point is, it's not that they are heat treating, it's how they are heat treating. A lot of people are saying, "I've heated over coals, it's no big deal." But how many of those people can say they they suspended the bow four or five feet(or whatever) over the fire and left it for hours. Most people that heat treat do it until they get some colour change. I don't really think there would be that much colour change at 270°f. I don't think he's made a major discovery or that he's the first but it is slightly different than probably 99% of us do it. I've been on here since 2014 and there have been a lot of heat treating threads. I don't remember anyone suggesting or using a similar method. I think it's just different enough to possibly be of value. I know in my future heat treating attempts this will be in the back of my mind and I'd bet I'm not the only one.

[PatM]

I doubt any two of us do it exactly the same.     You'd have  to prove how much a variation of placement and duration really matters to the end result.

 I've done all sorts of variations and the net result is hairsplitting in difference.