Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: hedgeapple on January 21, 2009, 06:02:52 pm
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I'm new to this site. I hope I'm asking this quest in the correct forum. A couple weeks ago I cut a hickory sappling from my farm. It was 3 1/3" diameter at the small end. This would be my first attempt at building a self bow or bow of any kind really. I split it nearly in half, scraped the outer and inner bark away, painted the ends and hung to begin drying while I work on constructing a drying box. I checked it today has dry cracks almost completely through it.
When we bought our farm 9 years ago it was mostly plasture land with trees along the fence rows and in gulleys. We have let the pastures grow in hopes of one day having forest. So, trees are dear to my heart. I don't want to keep whacking them down then not be able to use them.
Please advice me on how to handle the wood from log to stave and the how to store the stave until I can work on the bow.
Thanks.
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Hedgeapple
Personally I leave the bark on this slows down the drying process which is a good thing when you are talking about a stave paint the ends with some heavy paint and put it in a shady place where air can circulate and bugs cannot. With a thick piece of wood the outside wood dries and shrinks quicker than the inside wood and this is what causes cracking. Another method is to reduce the wood to near bow dimensions and let it dry that way.Hope this helps.
Ronnie
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thanks cracker
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If you are going to cut more hickory, have the bucket of paint or polyeuathane there when you cut it. Basically as soon as you cut through it, slap on a good layer on the ends. I have had them ckeck in as little as 15 minutse of cutting.
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I also cut mine over length so I can trim the ends and get rid of any cracks that might form there.Ron
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Cut the saplings (trees) on a dying moon. Leave the bark on, as stated previously.
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what does this mean on a dying moon... does that mean when the moon looks like a thin slice of lemmon wedge??????????????????? does this really help or are you being a joker??? ::)
really lol.. i need to know this becuase i just went and cut a 3 1/2" thick branck off a osage tree today about 62" long and i trimed it up but havent de-barked or anything yet...
but explain becuase i will waite next time to look for a dying moon.... if its true aor what i think it means???
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The cracks were up the center at the groove where the heart wood had popped out. There are cracks all up the stave except for the ends where I painted. Should I use some kind of oil or animal fat up the stave?
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I occasionally just put a coat of tung oil over the entire stave to slow moisture loss and help prevent cracking. I'm not sure it helps, but it does'n seem to hurt. Ron
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Here's another potentially crazy question: Years ago I read you should submerge osage logs in water for like a year to kill bugs and tighten the grain before you start the drying process. In everything I've read online in the last month, I've seen no mentions of drowning the osage logs. Is doing so crazy? Should I pull my two logs out of the pond?
Yes, I'm a newby. Bare with me. :)
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You actually put logs in yer pond :o
First off cut the tree, seal the ends with glue, wax, or shellac nice heavy coat, paint don't work for crap.
If the tree is big enough split it and remove the bark, on hickory becareful as the ring just under the bark is the back of your bow
and you don't want to cut through the growth ring nor nick it up too much. Once the bark is off seal the back with glue or shellac,
set it some where dry and out of the weather to dry. Osage needs the sapwood removed and then seal the back. If bugs are a problem
use an insecticide on the wood before storing them to dry. As for soaking the log the only possible advantage I see there is that it may make the bark on winter cut wood peel off easier :)
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I know Ive picked up some osage out of the creek that had been submerged,and dried it out,but never heard of intentionally drowning a stave. Get em out of the water and let dry.In the mean time you may wanna try building a board bow,or try trading for a stave on the trading post. Either way youll find plenty of help here!
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I do what Dana said...but will expand a little on his directions...
With white wood (hickory, hophornbeam, ash, hackberry, dogwood, etc.) cut the tree in the spring when the sap is up...May, June time frame I guess depending on where you live. The day that you cut the tree, cut it into 6' lengths and split it either in half's or quarter's depending on the tree's diameter. Carefully pop the bark off the back by wedging a hachet or similar tool under one corner of the bark at an end of the log and remove full length. It should pop right off with a little tugging on it. We then lightly scrape off the cambium layer which is a fibrous wet layer remnants between where the bark and hardwood was. Be careful doing this because as Dana said, this surface will be the back of your bow. When finished I wipe that surface off with a towell and then heavily shellac both the back full length, and each end. I even go down a few inches on the splits on the belly side from each end. I would then try and store it where it isn't really hot...don't want it to lose moisture extremely fast to begin with and potentially cause some splits.
If you leave the bark on as other's have mentioned and seal the ends, that will work...and allows you to cut the tree any time of the year. Probably would be better if you plan to leave the bark on to cut the tree in the winter when the sap is down so the log doesn't have as much moisture to lose. The negative side of this option is having to remove the bark with a drawknife or hachet because it won't pop off as it will in the spring, which is a pretty good job. Will also have to chase a grain as you would with osage. Pro's and con's to each process... ;)
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I do much as Greg and Dana said. You usually don't have many problems with hickory checking this time of year, but I usually slap some glue or shellac over the whole back just to be on the safe side. I used to leave the bark on until bugs ate most of my staves, get that bark off. Definitely get that osage out of the pond (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/hillbillync/Other%20Stuff/smilies/22_yikes.gif). And split it into staves-whole logs will check much quicker than split staves.The whole idea is to get the wood down to a low moisture content, but you have to do it in such a way as to initially keep water from escaping so quickly that the stave checks. Sealing the ends and back with glue or shellac will do the job. Also, you can take a dripping green stave and work it down into a roughed-out lightly floor-tillered bow blank, seal the back and ends, and it will dry quickly. You can have a bow shooting in a couple-three months if you do this.
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I believe the thinking about submerging an osage log for a year was that the natural moisture, sap, resins, etc. would be replaced with the water and would dry more evenly with less ill effects to the wood. Personally I would prefer to have the natural moisture in and for the stave to dry naturally so the resins, etc would solidify and create a stronger, more springy stave.
Did your hickory stave crack on the belly side or the back? If the belly, I wouldn't worry about it and if the back, you may be able to work around it. Checks follow the grain and are not necessarily the end of the stave. Pat
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Drying and seasoning wood, from my website: http://analogperiphery.blogspot.com/2008/08/drying-and-seasoning-wood.html
hope it helps
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Thanks everyone for you helpful information. I really appreciate the advice.
Auggie, I am starting a board bow today. I had come to the conclusion that there's a high possibility of me ruining my first few attempts. :) Boards are keeper and carry less sentimal value if they become kindling.
Dana and GregB, I'll take your advice to heart.
Shamus, awesome website thanks so much for sharing it with me.
I'll pull the osage logs out of the pond tomorrow. The ice should be melted by then. One loge is 66 inches about 9 inches diameter at the smallest end. The other is 70 inches about 6 inches diameter at the smallest. Any and all advice is greatly welcome.
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I would split both logs at least in half and seal the ends. Store them in a sheltered place for a while then split them down smaller.
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Thanks PatB, I'm assuming you're suggesting that I leave the bark on for now after I split them?
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unless you want remove the sapwood and seal the back, leave the bark on. This time of year the bugs shouldn't be that bad and if you notice any just spray the bark with insecticide.
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When I cut down a tree, I remove the bark, split the log into staves and trim each stave down to a blank immediately (or as fast as I can). A blank is the length of a bow (50-75 inches, for me), 2-3 inches wide across the back of the bow, an inch deep at the handle area and thin enough (in depth) along the limbs that I can barely bend the bow-to-be to brace height. I then sit the blank aside for a 3-6 weeks, and its dry and ready to work without any checking, despite the fact that I didn't use a drop of sealant. I've also quick-dried these blanks in my car during the summer, and had them seasoned enough to work in 5-10 days, depending on how hot and sunny it's been.
This is the fast dry method mentioned in the Traditional Bowyer's Bibles. I've found it works great, without fail, and it doesn't require me to buy sealant. You just have to work real hard the day you cut the tree, and much less hard when it's time to turn the blanks into a bow later on. It makes sense to me to do it this way, because green wood is easy to work, and seasoned wood is much harder. It also makes it easier to sell the blanks, as shipping doesn't cost as much.
-Eric
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We usually are cutting a tree 18-20" in diameter yielding 2 to 3 logs...and by the time we have it cut into logs and split, we're running out of steam. We might get 16 to 20 splits (might be a couple of staves to a split) or more out of a tree. After popping the bark off, scrapping that cambium layer and sealing is about all us old guys have energy left for. ;D
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Those submerged osage logs might shoot out some sprouts if the conditions are right. I had a fresh sassafras log w/ sealed ends do it last fall.
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I use toilet bowl gasket wax. Works better than anything $ can buy, to seal the ends with.
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Danny, makes good string wax too. ;D
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My only Osage bow was from a drowned log. the guy I got it from said they used to float logs down stream to a saw mill where a dam had been built. He claimed the saw mill and logging operation stopped about eighty years ago. Any way some body removed the dam in the stream and when drained there were logs in the mud. Well some how he got one or two and when we got my split out of it there was about 1.5-2" of rot on the outside. If I had seen that thing laying there in the mud I wouldn't have even thought to use it for fire wood. It made a great bow. The best one I have, has some character and two knot holes in one limb you can aim through!
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Great story Trey.
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The saga of the soaking osage--I had planned to remove the logs from the pond this weekend, but the pond still has about 4 inch of ice on it. So, I can't get them out yet. When it thaws I plan to split them into staves. I should get at least 4 staves from each log. Per log I will seal the ends half of them with the bark on. At least on from each log I will remove the bark and seal the back and end. At least one I will rough out to tiller stage from each log. I will at least tung oil (maybe shellac the backs) the rough out/tiller ones primary because of a moister they've soaked up in the last couple months in the pond. I would rather error on the side of caution.
Do you think that leaving them inside a shed would cause cracking from them being saturated and possibly freezing?
The hickory sappling that checked up the center of the belly will probably end up as firewood. BUT, I've decided that I am going to work it out just as I had planned on doing. Since this is my first attempt, I truly expect to screw up the first anyhow, and I can use the practice. If it makes a bow, it makes a bow. If it doesn't, I will have a 100 times more knowledge than I had going into this project.
I have already roughed out the hickory. There are a few knots that I'm learning to work around. My drawer knife is becoming my best friend. When I'm not using it to remove alot of wood, I turn it backward (cut bevel away from me) and hold horizontally and use it as scraper to remove tiny little slivers of wood.
The hickory also has a set bending in a nice arc to the right. The center line on the hand is 1 3/8 inche to the left of a straight line from the nocks :-[ But that's just another opportunity to learn. Tomorrow I'm going to steam, hand straighten and clamp it with about a 1/2 inch shim pulling the bow in the opposite direction from the arc I have now. From what I've been reading here and else where the wood returns to about 2/3 the bend we put on them. Does this sound about right to you all?