Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Tradslinger on February 11, 2021, 02:18:22 pm
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can you keep the moisture down in hickory by sealing it with something? seems like the Native Americans used various oils and such on their bows. or does sealing the wood just slow down the intake of moisture for hickory? here in western Arkansas, the humidity changes and can be very high in the summer. I'm just wondering if it is worth the trouble or should I pursue aquiring more Osage. I am mainly trying to build one good hunting bow that will last a few years. I am only drawing 26 inches and hope for about a 42# max bow. I just don't know if I want to mess with making a heat box to keep the moisture level down in a hickory bow. I had thought that heat treating a hickory bow would slow the intake of moisture down but I may be totally wrong.
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Hickory will suck moisture through just about every finish you can think of, but at varying speeds. And take into account the slower it takes IN the moisture, the slower it will GIVE IT BACK!
I would recommend woods that are less prone to breathing moisture in and out, woods like osage and black locust. Both of those can be found in Arkansas as well.
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No finish is perfect for keeping moisture out of a bow entirely. You’re best off with some type of top coat finish like poly or an epoxy. I hear some of the newer epoxy finishes are extremely good at keeping moisture out of wood. An oil alone won’t cut it. Whether or not it’s worth messing with is a personal choice. I think if you can get the hickory dry and seal it it’s worth a shot while you’re trying to acquire other staves.
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I understand the best way to deal with moisture problems is to just build wide and thin, though this can lead to excessive mass. (To be fair I usually build narrow bows and cook the daylights out of the belly if I think it will help)
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Im in ga and when i seal my hickory bows I dont seem to have any issues with them.. I just use a spar varathene and keep them in basement..take them out hunting or shooting all day.. then just put them back inside.. its the building process when they are so vulnerable to moisture..IMO..gut
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do you think the heat treating process I keep hearing about reduces the effect of moisture on hickory,,
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Darin Putnam fire pit heat treated a bunch of hickory and kept really good after the fact data on the moisture migration, perhaps he will chime in.
I have made a bunch of hickory bows and have seen first hand the performance change from a good dry day to a week or so of rain.
I don't think I have sealed a hickory bow with the epoxy acetone that Jay Massey preferred. It is the most impervious to moisture migration than any other finish I have used. I used it mostly on osage and arrows, an arrow could be lost under the grass for months and still be good with this finish.
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Your concerns are real. I used a hard core marine spar varnish on a hickory bow I used in Missouri. It held its draw weight. Spray-on spar urethane, Helmsman brand, has gone on some bows, over tung oil or Tru-oil (clear satin finish helps reduce sheen). This is not primitive, but neither are seasons, buck or doe restrictions, etc...
My first bow was hickory. Designed at 44# @ 27", I found the monsoonal Arizona moisture and humidity dropped it into the 38,39 # range when coupled with the fact with my actual hunting draw is 26" (and the set it took). I missed a lot that backcountry season. Shot low, a lot; my friends still abuse me over that summer.
I "dry out" my bows above the campfire or camp stove when hunting in wetter conditions, just enough to get warm-to-touch.
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I have seen Osage only twice in my life that I know of in the woods around here. As for black locust, the only one that I knew was a locust was Honey Locust and this only in a couple of places. My getting out and searching for wood days are over. The hickory was harvested about fifteen feet from a dirt road. A botched operation on my right foot left me crippled to go with other health issues and so my walking days are limited to very short range. There used to be fences everywhere around here that the wire was long gone but the osage posts were still there. The black locust would be nice to try as well, it just sounds good. maybe some day I will get some more Osage. The Osage that had been given me had already been cut with a bandsaw and a ring chased (but knots not respected). I would like to get a stave that needs to be debarked etc and let the wood do the deciding. it is what it is. but I am having second thoughts about the hickory for a main bow.
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It could work. I would get more opinions.
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Moisture will affect your hickory bows, but I believe it is exaggerated for most casual archers. Get it dry in a heat box, and keep it dry while you work your bow, put a finish on it and keep it inside in the climate control and I doubt you will be unhappy. You should try it and decide for yourself if it makes a good bow for you, my money is that it will.
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I made my friend a bow and it didn’t take much more then 1/2” set, in the summer here it’s 80% humidity, and we don’t have any climate control in our house. When I made the bow, I cut the tree ruffed out this stave and put it in a solar kiln For 2 weeks and made a bow... it’s probably the best bow I’ve made
Oh, and I heated beeswax and oil into while heat treating, then I put 5 coats of shellac on it.
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If you keep your bows in your climate controlled house during high humidity and low humidity for that matter you can maintain a reasonable MC
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They make climate controlled houses?!?! Also, what is it they call air conditioning? It seems to be pretty rare up here. (lol)
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I tried fire hardening hickory and applying several coats of the Massey finish but substituting denatured alcohol for acetone in hopes of slowing down moisture absorption in hickory selfbows this pass summer. Although I was very pleased with the finished bows 2-3 months in my shop with high humidity still affected the cast of my hickory bows. However after a couple weeks in heat box they returned to there normal selves.
Just in case anyone is interested I kept up with 4 bows I built and after a few months stored in high humidity shop the moisture content had shot up to an average of 9% on back and 7% on belly of said bows my speed suffered. I put them in the heat box untill I had a reading of 6% on back and 5% on belly and gained back an average of 8 fps. I put them in the box for a few days longer and moisture content was 5% on back and 4% on belly and gained back an average of 6-7fps.
Thats an average of around 14 to 15 fps lost on my hickory bows due to moisture absorption, but came right back after drying bows in heat box.
That being said I agree with every one else here build them and keep them in a controlled environment as hickory makes a great bow. Worst case scenerio dry it out if it takes on any moisture. I set out to see if I could slow moisture absorption in my style of hickory selfbows while still being able to store them in my shop during humid Alabama summers and this was my results.
My style of bow is not wide and thin, but are about 13/8 at the fades to about 11/8 about 8" from the tips which are about 3/8. Wide and thin could change everything but can't speak to that as I have not tried.
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If your house has central AC/heat it has climate control.
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I keep them in my computer room at 70 degrees year round hanging on a wall. Seems to work.
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They make climate controlled houses?!?! Also, what is it they call air conditioning? It seems to be pretty rare up here. (lol)
Well, if you are down Maine, they might call it central heating! Way out here, it is central air conditioning, real neat just put the thermostat at the desired temperature and relax; some models even control humidity! Not at all primitive! >:D (lol) (=). We are having fun with this! I used spray on Helmsman spar urethane on my hickory, but haven't kept any records on performance. Seems to shoot just fine, though (SH)
Hawkdancer
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I haven't made near the bows some of you folks have but I do try to advance the craft every chance I can. I always figured that was one of the main objectives of bow making forums.
I just decided to put the fire hardening process to the test and see if I could use it in my bow making and found out that I could. Although I didn't find that it helped my hickory bows to stop taking on moisture, I can't say that it didn't slow it down some. It definatly aided me in correcting and reflexing an unruly hickory stave without spending lots of time on the heat gun.
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I have gone through the same heat treating hickory experience. Our humidity is usually in the 90% range and no matter how many times I dried out the bow it began to take on moisture. Eventually the bow suffered. I have taken some hickory scrapes and tried different finishes. Number one is epoxy. I heated it till thin and applied to the scrap hickory. 3 months later it will still not measure on my cheapo meter . Number 2 is Odies oil. I love this stuff but it does take time to get the full effect. It has never gotten above 7%
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One of the main bow woods for the Eastern Woodland folks was hickory. How do you think they dealt with it and why would they prefer hickory over less susceptible bow woods?
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I'm talking out of my rear end now most likely but the Native Americans did have fires burning all the time for cooking etc. So maybe they kept them near the heat, kind of like a constant thing. I know that they rubbed in all kinds of oils and greases. Mink oil? the oils used by waterbirds to keep their feathers waterproof? So much of this info has been lost but you know that they had something figured out, they had to.
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Oils and greases keep water off of wood but water isn't the problem. The moisture that does affect bows is humidity, water vapor and that doesn't necessarily happen overnight but over a longer period of time.
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One of the main bow woods for the Eastern Woodland folks was hickory. How do you think they dealt with it and why would they prefer hickory over less susceptible bow woods?
pat, my best guess at this ( also I have no clue what im talking about, just a hypothesis) is that the people long before us like the eastern woodland hunters didn't mind much if there bows took a fair amount of set... and also worn't there bows mostly as tall as them? and bent threw the handle? cause that would be a pretty overbuilt bow wouldn't it? my guess is they liked hickory because of its durability, and a bow with a few inches of set would kill an animal just as dead as a reflexed one... right? :)
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Keep in mind that these people where probably stronger than the average modern archer, so they could get better cast simply by using heavier bows, and they could also get closer to game than most of us can. The lack of chronos probably had something to do with it too :D
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Hickory will suck up moisture that for sure but with a little extra care, such as keep in the dry when not using it, un string when not shooting it and a good sealer on the bow , I use 7 or 8 coats of tru oil and a last coat or 2 of satin polly. If I know I am going to be out in bad weather for a while I will wax it with a coat or 2 of Turtle wax, it will be fine, made and hunted with a bunch of them, just takes a little more care than Osage, I don't think it is any worse than Elm. :)
Pappy
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Pappy, i know its gets plenty humid and rainy where you hunt, been there,, good advice, thank you,,
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I was at a tribal meeting ..Tsalagi... one of the elders told me that they used to bury their bows in a mud embankment by a creek.. Locust was the preferred wood here..In Ga.. that is what he told me.. I guess burying the bow for about a month made it easier to work ... .. not sure.. I did see an article a while back where a guy submerged his bow in salt water to do basically the same thing...if I remember it hardened the wood inside and made outside easier to work.. gut
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Keep in mind that these people where probably stronger than the average modern archer, so they could get better cast simply by using heavier bows, and they could also get closer to game than most of us can. The lack of chronos probably had something to do with it too :D
Wouldn't heavier bows just take more set?
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Keep in mind that these people where probably stronger than the average modern archer, so they could get better cast simply by using heavier bows, and they could also get closer to game than most of us can. The lack of chronos probably had something to do with it too :D
Wouldn't heavier bows just take more set?
Based on?
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I've had similar experiences as others here have already mentioned. Keeping the moisture down during the build has been, to me, the most critical part. I've had great luck "fire hardening" wide, thin hickory bows as well. I don't pay much attention to the science of it, but the creosote in the smoke probably has something to do with it. Not sure, I just know it's worked well for me and the bows hold reflex even in higher humidity. Build dry, heat treat/fire harden, seal with more coats of finish than other species and you should be good to go. They'll still lose a little cast on the worst summer days, but they spring right back to life once they dry out.
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Keep in mind that these people where probably stronger than the average modern archer, so they could get better cast simply by using heavier bows, and they could also get closer to game than most of us can. The lack of chronos probably had something to do with it too :D
Wouldn't heavier bows just take more set?
Based on?
The implication was that the bows took set due to moisture so you could make a heavier draw to compensate. I'm asking if it's already taking set at a lesser draw weight wouldn't heavier weight lead to even more set?
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Keep in mind that these people where probably stronger than the average modern archer, so they could get better cast simply by using heavier bows, and they could also get closer to game than most of us can. The lack of chronos probably had something to do with it too :D
Wouldn't heavier bows just take more set?
Based on?
The implication was that the bows took set due to moisture so you could make a heavier draw to compensate. I'm asking if it's already taking set at a lesser draw weight wouldn't heavier weight lead to even more set?
yeah thats what I would think Allyn...cause like they describe in TBB about how if you make a bow 1" wide 30 pounds and it takes say 1" of set then make the exact same bow 60 pounds it would take 2" and how if you take two 1" wide 30 pound bows and "join" them together to make a 2" bow thats 60" it would take 1" of set?
that was worded badly sorry ;D you guys probably know the quote im talking about though.... or am I remembering incorrectly?