Steam Bending Fire Hardened Black Locust

[ibex]

 I don't post much, but spend time reading. I'm looking for feedback on steam bending some snappy Black locust that was in a big fire. It has made for a great shooting unbacked straight limbed bow. I'm wondering if you folks think this type wood will hold up to more reflex and static tips. Curious to know who would leave well enough alone and use the remaining few staves on unreflexed bows or push it a little more?

PS The bow in the picture is 66" tillered to 31 1/2". I draw it to 31" (65#) and it's been fine so far for several hundred shots with 10gpp arrows and a fastflite string.

[Pat B]

If it is a good shooting straight limb bow I would leave it as is and on the next bow to add reflex and static tips. The tips are probably already static like most bow.

[ibex]

 Thanks Pat, I should have said "recurve" static tipped.

[Pat B]

I understood what you meant. My point is leave a good bow as it is and start another bow with those changes thought through for your next bow.

[bjrogg]

If I had more staves I would probably be very tempted to experiment. Do you have any scrap pieces you can experiment with? I haven’t used BL. I think I have heard that it likes to fret and needs to be tillered really well to avoid this. Reflex probably wouldn’t help that problem.

Bjrogg

[eastcreekarchery]

I recently posted a question like this and i was recommended to not steam bend heat treated bl. Also i cant see a pic of your bow

[bassman]

For a straight limb bow the profile of your bow looks good.  Leave well enough alone. You will not gain all that much in speed, and the back could crack, or you could get belly fret. Build another one. JMO

[Marc St Louis]

I have found that BL steam bends easily but on the other hand heat-treated wood does not.  I wouldn't take the chance

[ibex]

Thanks for all the feedback. Looks like it will be a couple more straight ones with the wood I have. There's a bunch more of this stuff up on the mountain. Maybe I'll go up there and get some more, and try steam on it.

[bentstick54]

Maybe try to find some more wood that might have been towards the edge of the fire zone, maybe not affected by the heat as much. Or as suggested if you can split off a sample piece of one of your remaining staves and experiment with steaming it before trying a bow size stave.