Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Billinthedesert on March 30, 2018, 10:20:18 am
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I was a reading a thread by loefflerchuck about a Gambel oak bow he built that blew up without out warning -- and the conclusion being it just got too dry here in the desert. Wondering what steps can be taken to prevent this. Beeswax comes to mind. Any thoughts or experience trying to keep a trace of humidity in a bow?
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Store it in your bathroom.
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10$ humidity meter and a humidifier in one small room in your house. If you have a basement you might not have to use the humidifier much. Keep bows between 35% and 55% RH
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+1.I like analog humidity gauges.
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could on rub a wet rag on it occasionally? Not joking.
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Hmmm. The RH here in the Tularosa Basin often gets into the single digits. I wonder how the Apache and the Jornada Mogollon peoples before them kept their bows from breaking.
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Maybe they "overbuilt" them, for the draw weight? In Arizona, humidity can go from 10% to 80% plus during monsoon season. I had a bow go from 44 pounds draw weight to upper 30's, 38 if I recall, in one hunt.
I sort of dry the bow out, high over a campfire coals in the evening, during the really humid days of our summer velvet season (also like how the smoke as I had some damp twigs adds patina to the whitewood).
As for adding moisture, I'm with you, perplexed.
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Mark, I'm sure we'll see the same humidity swings here, too, in monsoon season.
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I would bet the elders used some sort of grease, maybe mixed with beeswax! I made up a 1:4 beeswax/flaws oil mix, but I think 2:3 might be better. Rub it in well, whatever you use. I treat most of my wood arrows with the mix. Another finish is equal parts pine tar, linseed oil, and real turpentine.
Hawkdancer
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Just started skimming through some of my resources, and see that Reginald Laubin says the Apaches often rubbed their bows with deer or bear fat. This should have helped seal the wood somewhat against humidity swings. Some Apaches apparently backed their bows with sinew; the Chiricahuas reportedly wrapped theirs. Laubin also says they grooved their wooden arrows, and that the Apaches had a reputation for powerful bows giving great penetration. He mentions one source who, in the 1800s, encountered a human skull pinned to a tree by an arrow and held there for many years. John Bourke ("Medicine Men of the Apache," Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1892)reported Apache arrows deadly to 150 yards and capable of penetrating six inches into a pine tree.
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Any mention of draw weight for Apache bows. Seems those shorter draw bows do better with mid 50's.
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All finishes delay rather than prevent moisture entering and leaving wood, but definitely should prevent wide, rapid swings.
I'm not an expert on bows of those peoples and region, but the museum and reconstruction pieces I have seen were made of tough woods and sinew-backed.
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Any mention of draw weight for Apache bows. Seems those shorter draw bows do better with mid 50's.
The one Pope tested pulled less than 30.
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Pat, I have seen reference to Pope's test before -- and somewhere a comment as to why this was an anomaly -- maybe in a discussion in one of the TBBs. I will look. The Apaches' fierce reputation as warriors scarcely comports with the idea that they were armed with 30-pound bows.
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Perhaps but nothing really indicates they were armed with weapons of much more strength. Museum bows and arrows indicate this as well as historical photographs.
Bow strength isn't really a good correlation to how much warrior a guy is.
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If that is the case, and I do not doubt it, wow. Really enjoy the discussion of NA bows' draw weights. A 550 grain arrow out of a 35 bow is approximately 15.7 gpp; it worked for me , but was kinda slow.
One advantage of that light a draw would be maintaining control of the shot regardless of the varied body positions that hunting/warfare impose. I have made an Ishi sytle bow, that is 55# @ 23 inches; built for 24-25 inches, but that short 55" bow stacks and I feel it in my shoulders. I love the length, but am thinking on dropping a little draw weight, add a little draw length (27?). This thread simply muddies my waters, lol.
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the cast and "snap" of the bow, at 30#, would be key, yes?
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The published weights of old arrows are far lighter. Remember some were actually supposed to be reeds with a foreshaft.
The terms snap and cast are really the same thing. ;)
Pope's tests do undervalue the old bows he tested and Laubin's book gives a better idea of what these bows were truly capable of but they still were't high draw weight armor piercers and they didn't need to be.
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Hawkdancer,,,I posted a question,regarding the Pine tar mixture,as a self bow finish for dry climates,a while back.Nobody seemed to have tried it..I intend to on a bow soon....
Another point of debate,that i seldom hear,regarding antique native bows is this,,,,Without documentation of who the bows belonged to,,how are we to be sure,it belonged to and was used by a warrior???...It could have belonged to and been used by a Juvenile,,warrior in training..
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Trade,
I used it on my lodge poles, actually got the recipe on the Wooden Canoe Heritage Assn site. On a bow, I think you have to rub it in and use several coats to get a good seal. It is apparently a very good water resistant finish, and a northeastern native recipe.
Hawkdancer
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I was instructed,,to use heat to get it to penetrate properly and as you said,,with several coats..I have never heard of anyone using it for a bow finish though.