Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: eastcreekarchery on December 07, 2020, 11:49:00 am
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is this a bad idea since a heat treated belly might not want to stretch?
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humm... I don't heat treat till bow is almost finished on tilling... probably not a good idea you will lose all your heat treat if you steam now...gut
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Kiln dried wood is usually not suitable for steam bending, it snaps most of the time, or has a greatly reduced capacity to take and hold a bend. Heat treated wood is even more extreme than kiln dried. Sounds like a really bad idea to try and steam after a heat treat.
If you need to make a minor correction or add a little reflex, you'd have better luck with a heat gun. Wood can only take so much abuse though.
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A better question might be exactly why you need to do this. What are you attempting to achieve?
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A better question might be exactly why you need to do this. What are you attempting to achieve?
im working on a bow experiment. I made a small bow to practice heat treating and it took a lot of set in the process. I wanted to reflex the tips to see how performance might improve. I was inspired by a paragraph in TBBI that said a reflex deflex design would work best for a selfbow efficiency wise.
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That bow is already bending too much in the grip. You would have to address that in your experiment. You could always try a soaking and boil the tips to see if it can be done. You might be sacrificing the bow though. Not that this has to be a big deal.
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I found that heat treated yew doesn't like to take radical steam bends, like 70° recurves. It was way stiffer than untreated wood. I never broke one but I only tried it once and then I was chicken.
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My experience is that it is not a good idea
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One of the reasons heat treating helps a bow is by force-drying the wood. The moisture content in the in the wood should be too dry to bend with steam. It will break.