Eastern Woodlands build Part 1

[superdav95]

Lookin good mike.  Are you gonna just keep what little dogleg left and just attempt to align the tips with next heat treatment?   

[M2A]

That the plan Dave. I was a bit disappointed I did not get more of that out the first time. I could make it work as is now I think with single side nocks but not really the look i am after.  After tillering yesterday, I got the stave out to 22" at 42 lbs with out any set I can see and maintained the reflex. 5 More inches to go but I will be heat treating again real soon and with the wood being thinner it should straighten up better. But will need to slow down to try and prevent as much set as I can and get the outers and handle to do a little more work, last 5 inches of tillering is usually when any set creeps in for me.  No pictures, but hope to be able to do so in a day or 2 and that could show the progress better.
Mike               

[superdav95]

Sounds like a good plan.  No set at 22” is a good sign you are in right track.  I’ve never heat treated bl before.  If it’s considered a dense white wood I would assume it should do quite well with it.   

[Zugul]

Very nice progress, I hope to learn a lot from this thread since locust and I don't seem to get along very well. Did you use some kind of oil to make the corrections to the side and front profiles or just heat? did you start applying pressure as soon as you started heating the wood or did you wait a cuple minutes?

[Del the cat]

Some handsome timber you have there. Glad you are back in the saddle
Del

[JoeC]

I'm enjoying following your build, Mike!  Looking forward to more.
Joe

[Selfbowman]

Good build Mike. I like your detail in the build. Good info for the beginner and the ones that have built for years. We never quit learning in this bow making stuff.

[M2A]

I heat treat every locust piece I work on Dave. It works well for me. I think its helps with compression. Hope to do the sencod treatment soon, but been delayed a bit the last few days.
Zugul, I do keep a bottle of olive oil on the bench and use that when heating. I started doing that because thats how people said it was done, to spread out the heat better. I do think it helps prevent scorching the wood from my experience. With the side bends I heat it up and then attempt to straighten most of the time. I will try and be more detailed when I try and remove that dogleg soon. As far as the reflex I work from the middle of the bow towards the tips and keep some pressure at the tip and increase after each 6" area I treat. I have pulled the fibers in the belly apart on compressed trained belly wood before this way and so thats why on this one I got some reflex in it as soon as i did. I will try and find one in the corner of shame and get a pic. Where do you run into problems with locust?
Thanks Del and Joe!
Thanks Arvin! Hope this can show some guys newer to this or thinking about trying that if I can do it so can they. This style IMO works for any hardwood at these dimensions for a normal draw length. I like how you add reflex in the outers and thats where I got the idea. If it works for flight bows no reason it cant for a good target bow. I didnt reflex the inner limbs so any set will give it a deflex/reflex profile. not that thats how you want to get there but its going to happen.

Lots to work to go still and hope to get back to working on it tonight.
Mike             
     

[Zugul]

Zugul, I do keep a bottle of olive oil on the bench and use that when heating. I started doing that because thats how people said it was done, to spread out the heat better. I do think it helps prevent scorching the wood from my experience. With the side bends I heat it up and then attempt to straighten most of the time. I will try and be more detailed when I try and remove that dogleg soon. As far as the reflex I work from the middle of the bow towards the tips and keep some pressure at the tip and increase after each 6" area I treat. I have pulled the fibers in the belly apart on compressed trained belly wood before this way and so thats why on this one I got some reflex in it as soon as i did. I will try and find one in the corner of shame and get a pic. Where do you run into problems with locust?

Thanks for your replay. In the past I ran into problems with locust when I tried to bend it without oil, as soon as it changed colour only a bit it became very stiff and bending it more resulted in cracks. Other than that I've always messed up my initial tillering stages, I think because my thickness taper wasn't very consistent from the get go. To solve this problem I got an outside caliper wich I'll use to ensure my taper is gradual and steady, without thick or thin spots.

[M2A]

I think thickness taper is very important as well Zugul. Otherwise the bends may not be consistent. Still no where as good as I would like to be and still learning and figuring things out myself. below is a picture from an older project where I watched a belly tension crack appear while trying to reflex a piece of osage. just the weight of the bow as leverage and gravity but was already worked in compression a good bit. Was the easy example to find but I had done this in the past with locust. Prim reason I put the reflex in this piece before I really started tillering
IMG_5863 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr

Just no room in the shop for a string and pully tillering set up so I just use a tillering stick. Not the best but its what I got and have always done. The problem is its too hard to get good picture as I dont want to hold the bow at target weight for the time it takes to get the picture. But its 42 lbs at 22 inches still. I figured its best to make a few heat correction to closer line up the string and then heat treat again. Seeing how i did not get it all out the first time with heat treating the bow before I really wanted to do a good job this time. Figured I would get any sideways bends out 1st. I dont turn the heat gun up as high just doing that as I am not looking to change the color of the wood really, just get it up to temperature to bend. Here are my heat gun notes I made up from trial and error. Right/wrong idk but its what i use.
IMG_5854 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr 

Here is a before picture showing where the dogleg is.
IMG_5853 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
I need to move enough to get the tip 3/4" over and that should center the tip to handle area
takes a good bit longer with the lower temperature but I think it allows the heat to penetrate better
IMG_5856 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Over bent about 3/4" to allow for some spring back
IMG_5862 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr

Pretty close now.
IMG_5864 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
Only problem now is I will need to clamp real well for the heat treating so correction does not get heated back to how it was.

Didn't know how to word most of that so just kind of winged it. Hope it all makes sense, didn't proof read. I need to look at weather or not to make slight adjustments near each nock or leave well enough alone. Otherwise hope to do the final heat treat this weekend and then I hope to work it up to brace height. The wood is a little lighter than I like but I still feel pretty good about it and closing in on full draw so fingers crossed.
Mike         

[superdav95]

Good stuff mike.  We are on the edge of our seats.   

[Muskyman]

Looking good Mike. Heating and bending always freaks me out. It’s part of it for sure but, it still makes me nervous. Definitely starting to straighten up.

[Zugul]

M2A I understood everything you said, I think my problem with heat bending is the fact that my heat gun has only 2 settings: 350°C (660°F) and 550°C (1020°F). This time I used the high setting while keeping the heat gun 2" away from the stave and moving it pretty fast over a section 8" long. I got a bit of colour change only after heating the same section with oil on the surface for a total of 25-30 minutes in 3 different sessions, letting the wood rehydrate for a cuple days between them. The stave is still not completly straight, so I'll have to do one more. This time I'll try the lower temperature setting while slowing down the heat gun movement, I hope to be back on my thread with positive news.

[M2A]

Thanks Dave.
Muskyman. yeah the learning curve for me took awhile to be able to add enough heat to bend it and have it hold. Still have those pieces that can be difficult.
Zugul. seems like 25 min at high temp is a bit long to not get much color change over 8". I keep my heat gun at most and inch away from the wood and keep it moving. maybe not fast but not slow either. If your trying to straighten maybe go with the low heat until you can get some movement then high heat for a little to get what you need. If you can get the string on the handle you can always adjust the tips some to adjust how the string lines up on you handle. Steam works well too but I have not used it enough to give any advice. I'd try the higher setting on your gun to heat treat i think. 4-5 min over your 8"area might be a good guess. looking forward to good things on your build.

Heat treated my stave. went from 22 inches down to 19 on the tillering tree at 42 lbs. Spent some time evening things up and roughed in the nocks.
IMG_5865 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr
I like to bevel the belly side so the modern string does not split the grain.

Also was able to get it to a 4" brace height.
IMG_5866 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr

Here is where it will get interesting. I can just see some set creeping in at mid limb. I dont think I have the tips doing enough work still so will be slowly working on them. My goal was and still is a small bit of reflex when finished, even if i end up with 1" of string follow when shot in I'll consider it a success. Its 43 lbs at 23 inches now. 4 more inches to go. 1.5" of reflex in it yet so lost about .5 inches overall so far. Here is it unstrung.
IMG_5868 by Mike Allridge, on Flickr

Hope to get a picture in hand when I get it to 25". I usually would trap the back now but don't think I will be doing it to this one because I have one small pin knot close to the one edge.
Thats it for now
Mike                   

[Pappy]

Looking good Mike, can’t wait to see it finished. Pappy