leaving bows in cars too long

[Fox]

How damaging can it be to leave a hickory self bow in the car for a week? in the 60s to 20s and and low humidity, at all?

[StickMark]

If the humidity was low, all that occurred, in my experience with temp's, is that the bow gained weight at 20 degrees and lost it as temp's rose to 60.

I tested this range, 20 degrees to 70 degrees, last winter, and hickory bows, even sinewed, gained around 3 pounds in the hour or so outside.

[organic_archer]

I can’t see that being damaging at all. You might notice fluctuations in performance, as mentioned. The car thing mostly applies to hot summer days. On 80-100 degree days, the temp of a closed car cab can reach 120-150 degrees.

[Pat B]

As long as you don't strain an overheated hickory bow or any wood bow for that matter there shouldn't be a problem. Like said above there may be a change in performance or draw weight but that usually fluctuates with the changes in humidity anyway. Hickory, unlike other bow woods like to be dry, even as low as 5% to 6%. Most other bow woods like 9% to 11%.

[JW_Halverson]

I USE hot cars to finish drying out staves when in a hurry. It is also handy to push the last of the moisture out of a sinew-backed bow.

Last spring I sinew-backed a hickory bow that I had toasted into an inch of deflex. Immediately after the hide glue set up I had that bow on a scale and noted the weight in grams. By monitoring the weight loss and charting the rate of loss I could calculate when the moisture loss had really slowed down. At that point, the bow went into my Kia Sportage parked in the sun. I tracked moisture loss morning and night until it just plain had no loss for days. Temps in the vehicle regularly went to 150 in the late afternoon.

So now I had an idea of the maximum dryness that stick was gonna see short of placing it in a serious oven! I have tracked the spring back weight, it has gained 4-5 grams (4-5 cc's of moisture).

TL;DR Your wood got dry. It will reabsorb moisture from your ambient humidity and everything will be fine.

[BetterTrees]

I exploded my plum recurve after it sat in the dash for a while and I didn't let it rehydrate. It felt super heavy and I gave it a couple of half draws before going back to anchor and it blew on me.
I'm sure it would have been fine after a day or so in wetter conditions.

[Pat B]

Patience, Grasshopper!