Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: PEARL DRUMS on February 28, 2013, 12:00:36 pm
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Im at my wits end with a piece of pine right now. I have oiled and heated the heck out of this bow and it will not stay straight. It comes right back over night. Talk about mad? The portion Im trying to straighten is in the handle and its not severe, say 20 degrees? Dry heat does not work with or without oil. Leaving it clamped overnight doesnt work either.
Should I shellac the area before steaming? And does yew need a 45 minute steam to be safe? This is yews last chance with me. Three strikes is ample in my tiny book.
Thanks for any yew wisdom you may share.
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Pearly i wrap it w cut up cotton t shirt strips then spray it good w water drippin wet wrap it good w foil gget ur heat gun out heat heack out it setms right there id say 45min. To a hr then do ur bendgo 20% more than u want let er sit all nite i dont shellac it but i have used tru oill on back let er rehydrate a week or so hope that helps brock
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I've always had great luck correcting or recurving yew with just dry heat, no oil.
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Bein honest i wont touch yew w dry heat juniper eithe no mattr how dry the wood always end up w cracks w dry heat sience iv done em that way havent had one crack yet brock
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I read in the last issue of PA by Marc about doing it like Brock said,haven't tried it,I have had good luck with dry heat in bending it, no oil,the main problem I have is denting it so bad,it's like working with punk wood. ;) :) Sure can't clamp it up like Osage,we used thick leather on the last one for shims and that helped but still dented it some. :) Hard heads like me I guess needs to work with hard wood. ;) :)
Pappy
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It shouldnt be this difficult to build a simple straight bow. And another reason I love so many other woods more. Heat it, bend it, it stays and I move on. Thats building a bow for me.
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pearly post some pic s of it i wanna see the grain on that do ya think the wood coulda been wet when it was bulit ? cuz yews helll if wet and drys lol brock
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The grain lines are straight and the wood has to be dry as much as Ive heated it up and have had no cracks anywhere, it looks great. Its just bent at the handle. Its holding the same shape the stave held and wont let it go.
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Guess its time to start signing the bowyers rendition of the national anthem....
"O-osage can you see...by the bowyers bench....what so proudly we hail...as the king of all bow wood.....and yeller wood bending everywhere....while whitewoods busting everywhere....gave proof thru out time...that osage is still there....o say does that yeller wood banner yet wave....in the land of the free....and in the home of the bowyer." >:D
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That should be your signature!
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i don't have any advice for you but that recent article but Mark did come to mind.
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I plan on trying that tonite after work golden gopher, cross your fingys.
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i have never used anything other than steam to correct twisted and kinked yew (not that i know something you dont, its just the first thing i tried and it worked). however you are right, i always steamed that sucker for 45 minutes to and hour and then made my correction quickly.
Roy
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Blakehawk I love it you are so right on the money OSAGE is the best wood LOL.
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Gonna need longer than 45 mins bud
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Cut it in half at the handle and make another take down, Pearly.. :)
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Roy its not worth the gamble to spend the time and money on it. Wrong kind of wood for me to gamble with.
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if you are trying to bend it in handle region I would guess its gonna tale longer than 45 min of steam...hour and a half
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The handle is 1 x 1 3/8.
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One of the very first yew bows I made I steamed the living daylight out off and it turned a twiglet into straight bow.
Took forever but worked great.
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Great bowyer's anthem, blackhawk. I'll bet Beyonce could lip-sync it.
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Its the east coast bowyers anthem. I proudly secede from that union. >:D
Gabe
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Poor Osage King can't fix it and Chicken Hawk can't tell ya how to either?:)
Nearly everything I know about building a good bow I learned from somebody else.
Time to go back to school, Pearly Boy..
Yew might not be orange in color, but it's better wood than that Osage crap.
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Agree with ya 100% roy yews nbr 1 osage 2 lol brock
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I have never worked in Osage or Yew. But I know a few thigns from reading and general wood work. Not all Yew is the same. Yew has been a premium bow wood for centuries.
Yew is behind the loss of nearly a whole generation of French nobility (what ever that means). It made deadly bows on a comercial scale. There is a reason it is so expensive.
So rather than blaming the species perhaps look at the piece or the operator :o. My guess is that you need to add more steam time and possbily more heat.
Steaming the middle will mean that you are loosing heat as it is drawn out to the ends. That will need to be compensated for by time.
There is probably more mass at the handle then out at the ends. That will need to be compensated for by time.
The design of your steam box may be inefficient. I read some articles about using PVC becasue it's a better insulator than wood ones or metal ones. I'd say try to find some urethane board?
Or try the wet shirt and tin foil method. Personaly I'd want to make sure I got even heat and steam all around and could quickly get it where it needed to be and bending.
I recently watched a video on Nova about rebuilding the pharo's chariot. The long gooseneck section was breaking when they tried to bend it to match the curves in exibited originals. They extending the time in the steam oven to 6 hours (I think) and it worked.
I'd say if you are steaming 45 min.. try 2 hours, get it HOT, use alot of steam.
Don't give up but don't get stupid. Step away from it till you can remain objective and you aren't mad at it.
Just my $.02.
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Yup Brock.. Osage is ok, nearly bullet proof. Any young kid can make an Osage bow and think they are a Bowyer. But give those kids a Yew stave and they can't even get the handle straight??? LMFAO
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Could you cut the bow in the center, shave it flat and splice it. If it ends up thin then just build up the riser section. My 2 bits........ ::) ::)
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Yup Brock.. Osage is ok, nearly bullet proof. Any young kid can make an Osage bow and think they are a Bowyer. But give those kids a Yew stave and they can't even get the handle straight??? LMFAO
Hey now, lets play nice.
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I've had the same prob with one piece of Yew springing back so I changed from steam to dry heat, did a tad of tempering along with the bend to make sure it was hot enough and left it clamped for 3 days (that's 3 cat days, which is about 2 of your human days). That did the trick.
I've been doing my bonkers bow and I did correct a bend in the handle of that but I narrowed it first to about 1" and heated the heck out of it, I had foil behind it to direct the heat all round the grip and kept at it until it was getting pretty brown, still took two goes, and it was bent on the jig a good bit past where I needed it to end up.
Bottom line is. .. not hot enough through to the core of the wood and only time and temperature will do that...
Del
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If it's bending back you haven't used enough heat - simple!!
Yew will heat bend like a dream....if you do it right.
I would steam it for 1 hr per inch thickness.
Clamp past where you want it then give the area a good heating with a heat gun.
Remember steam is just a medium to transfer heat just like the air from a heat gun.
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Thanks for the advice fellers.
I stuck with dry heat again. I heated the spot up for at least 10 minutes on high from 6" away. I had plenty of oil on it sizzling away. It was hot enough it actually wrinkled the wood when I pushed it over. No cracks or problems, just a wrinkle. I call that hot enough? We shall see when I get home tonite.
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Hope it works out, Chris.
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Me too. I dont think I could have got it much hotter without combustion.
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Drums I did this yesterday........ This is the third Yew bow I've used dry heat on (never tried steam). It's a two piece from billits and after working it down and attaching the sleeve it had about 3 1/2 inches of deflex. It took about two hours to get it hot enough with dry heat and oil to get it to hold. It still sprang back about 3/4" when I unclamped it. I also removed some propeller twist that would rival the exorcist!!!
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/PAandTradgangbowtrade2013003_zpscd09ed1b.jpg)
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/PAandTradgangbowtrade2013001_zpscc8b0848.jpg)
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2 HOURS Kip Winger! Good Lord you must have been slopping the oil to her. Mine would have combusted by then. Ive never got any type of wood as hot as this piece. I think it was sawed out slightly crooked from a straight 1/4 log and Im trying to move it in a way it shouldnt. Its a lateral move Im making by the way.
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Its a lateral move Im making by the way.
I've still got a bit of that to do but I'm going to get a bit closer to bow dementions so as not to stress the center so much :)
:laugh: I denched it with about a pint of sunflower oil (don't tell my wife). I held my gun back far enough so as not to scourch this pretty Yew.
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Well kip it's about time you finished my take down bow.
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I use steam heat too on yew. Let it cool overnight all clamped up, and then hit it with moderate dry heat and leave clamped another day. It works for me.
BTW, pearl, I finally got that 8" reflex VM stave shipped out to you. The guy at the post office undermeasured by an inch to avoid charging me the oversized surcharge. Nice guy. 8) Anyway, he said hoepfully no one remeasures it and trys to charge you on delivery. Let me know if they do and I will make it right.
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I wouldnt sweat it Carson. I will whack 'em in the noodle with my VM stick and tell them to leave my yard! Thanks for the wood, I cant wait to dig into that beauty. Looks like "Two Holer" may have to be put on the back burner yet again.
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Dangled Informative Thread!
Got a stave or three O Yew that make obscene gestures at me every time I pass em.
Correcting Lateral Deviation is currently my least enjoyable facet of heat correction.
The Dogwood I built for my Trade Bow last year needed a ton of it. And wouldn't hold
the correction, both Steam and Dry Heat.
That piece taught me to Turn down my heat, heat Much more slowly over a Longer period of time.
And increase my clamp time to days instead of hours.
But if in the end you decide that Yew is Evil...
I'd be interested in trading some Bodark for it...
-gus
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Downrite FUNNY Blackhawk :laugh: - good luck Pearly ! Bob
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Well I'll be. I thought I was the only one who was having trouble bending yew. I worked on a short sinew backed thing with curved tips, and the tips bent and stayed just fine with oil and heat gun but when it came time to fix the sideways bend in the limbs it took me forever to get it to stay,it kept wanting to go back to original. Funny thing is though I finally got it straight sinew'd skin backed and sealed and after only 4 months of shooting and once in the rain ,it's back to crooked the sting now lies 2" out side the handle.
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Well I'll be. I thought I was the only one who was having trouble bending yew. I worked on a short sinew backed thing with curved tips, and the tips bent and stayed just fine with oil and heat gun but when it came time to fix the sideways bend in the limbs it took me forever to get it to stay,it kept wanting to go back to original. Funny thing is though I finally got it straight sinew'd skin backed and sealed and after only 4 months of shooting and once in the rain ,it's back to crooked the sting now lies 2" out side the handle.
That sucks, Art. especially after going to all the trouble to put sinew on it and now you cant heat it up again. >:(
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Sounds to me like Yew doesn't like being forced to bend against the grain. Maybe because the rings are so close together? I would think being as soft as it is, it would bend like rubber. Maybe that's why it just springs back.
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Well, it's a good thing yew always grows pipe straight... ::)
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Well most of it does. Pearly Boy must of gotten a weird piece. No pun intended :) If he doesn't get it fixed soon, I'm gonna buy it off him and make a bow with it.
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It appears to have worked this time. Its actually 1/4" or so beyond center the other way. So if it comes back a touch I should be okay. Im going to brace it tomorrow morning. Take it or break it? We shall see.
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Sounds better, Chris. Hope it works out well for ya.
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It appears to have worked this time. Its actually 1/4" or so beyond center the other way. So if it comes back a touch I should be okay. Im going to brace it tomorrow morning. Take it or break it? We shall see.
Whew that's a relief... we can all get some sleep now >:D
Del
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It came back a touch more than I like. The good news its cheated to the passenger side so the string wont hit my arm. I braced it and have it tillered back out to 22". Feels like about 45-50# there. Its either gonna shoot arrows in 30 minutes or knock me in the head.
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Well a good knock on your head might not be a bad thing:), but I hope she shoots arrows and stays together for ya Chris.
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Its official.............I made a damn pine bow finally. I added 2" of reflex after initial tillering, and kept over an 1" for now. I shot it a dozen times. Im going to let it rest for a few hours while I clean my crap hole shop up. They both need it....
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Wheres the proof? 8)
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Woo! I'm glad that piece worked out for yah bud!
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Nice! Now you'll never go back to osage. >:D
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Congrats Pearly boy, you finally made a "real" bow son:) But it's not a bow till we see the full draw picture...
Your rules:)
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Its official.............I made a damn pine bow finally. ???
Come on Pearly Boy, the full draw pix dude...
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Did I miss the official posting of this bow? Where is it!!!???
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No you didnt. It started coming apart after a few more shots. Knots cracking, sapwood cracking and so on. Its back in the corner it started in.
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What!? That's not right. Oh well shoot t till it breaks :)
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I wont string it again as is. Its one pull from explosion man. Im going to super glue the heck out of it and then glue rawhide down. I dont have faith in it being durbale, but I have to give my LAST attempt at pine all I have before I give up for good.
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Hmmmmm..........?
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is that your patched yew bow?
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Very tasty!