What really happens when you season wood?

[ionicmuffin]

So i looked up underwater seasoning and found this http://www.ehow.com/list_7282817_timber-seasoning-techniques.html
the explanation that they gave, is that your goal is to dry up or wash out the sap. Is this whats really going on? i know a bunch of bowyers speak about it and say it needs to be seasoned. Well, maybe its the higher sap content that makes the piece of wood less desirable until its dried? i think that if this is true it would help a good many bowyers who either dont think it matters or that want to be able to explain the importance of seasoning. I would imagine thats why when Bryce was tapping the end of a stave to the floor and listening for differences in pitch, the higher pitch would be because there is less sap to absorb the sound in a well seasoned piece as opposed to a fresh cut piece. What are your guy's thoughts on this?

[IndianGuy]

Ionicmuffin I knew an old Native American bowyer that would bury a stave in the mud next to a pond and let it set for a few months before digging it up and roughing it out, he then would let it cure and finish it out after dry, His bows were very nice but I never got an explanation of why he did that. I personally do not see any benefits.

[randman]

I definitely think there is something to the seasoning the sap in the wood theory. Like when pine or spruce sap is sticky and viscous compared to hard and brittle. And I think there is something to the underwater and/or mud seasoning thing too. like exchange of minerals or something. There are some who speculate that part of the reason Stradivarius (and other violin makers from his time period) violins are so special is because (not only age seasoning) but in that time period they stored lumber and the tone woods submerged in water in Venice and that added a special (mineralization or whatever) quality to the wood that enhanced the tone. I don't think they did it for THAT reason or even KNEW it would enhance the sound, that was just a common practice of the day. That is still evident in areas of the Mississippi and other rivers and lakes today where they pull logs and trees out that have been submerged for over a hundred and fifty years and cut it up for lumber. You'll never see lumber like again.
I also think there is something to the tone pitch thing. I also will hold a bow about a third of the way down from the top and tap on it lower down and listen to the tonal harmonics (it's a guitar maker thing). Haven't quite figured out the correlation yet but if I don't get a nice tone, i suspect something is off. It is also evident when you pluck a braced bow string, You'll either get a nice tone or a flacid blubbery sound which makes me think one limb is not resonating with the other properly. After all, I gotta think the bow was first stringed instrument in history.
I also go for tone when I change a band saw blade. Pluck it and tighten it till I get a nice "B" note

[Zion]

Well there's a big difference between a 'seasoned' piece of wood and a 'dry' piece of wood. A seasoned piece of wood is usually more durable and won't take set because it's pretty much dead. A 'dry' piece of wood won't take as much set but it still hasn't reached that ultra hard level that seasoned wood has.

I don't see why u would do that because after taking it out of the pond it would be completely water-logged and you'd have to dry it out for a whole 'nother month anyway. I think a good seasoning method is to sorta quick-dry wood for about a month and then slowly season it from there.

[ionicmuffin]

zion, how can a piece of wood that is already at its max MC go any higher? so soaking it shouldn't hurt it. its the fact that prolonged exposure to air AND moisture that i believe makes wood rot and become weakened. It has to be TOTALLY submerged in order for that method to work.

[Poggins]

There is a guy that I see at OJAM and he has several Osage billets that he and his father sunk in a pond I believe he said about ten to fifteen years ago and when they pulled them out they had turned kinda green and very hard , they looked very nice and I think he got well over a hundred dollars for a set of them.
When my dad was young they would submerge their ease car bloks in a creek for a month or two then hone them to get the surface rust off , they said minerals would fill the tiny voids in the castiron and make the cylinders harder and would not wear out as fast .
I'm going to sink some billets and a couple staves in my pond for two or three years and see what happens .

[ionicmuffin]

if i were you i would select some you wouldn't mind loosing. but ones that would definitely make a bow. Let us know how it turns out! maybe bookmark this thread and re-post when its finished!

[Gordon]

I'm going to get some popcorn - this is going to be good 

[ionicmuffin]

the making of this movie will take about 10 years   

[Poggins]

I may get one down close to floor tiller and drop in deepest spot in my pond then pull it out this fall or next spring . As far as loosing one , I put four pickup loads of logs in my barn in the last three weeks so I've got plenty and the two farmers told me to get all I wanted , gust start with the ones on the fences and leaning over the fields first .
Good thing I bought a new saw last fall , haven't set up a photo bucket account yet but will one of these days ( I like it when I can upload straight from my phone or computer ).

[Poggins]

If those billets show up at OJAM I'll get a picture of them and get the hole story on it , they may be a takedown bow by now but I will get pics.

[ionicmuffin]

sweet! well what wood is it?

[Zion]

Idk, it just seems like a hassle to me, i haven't heard that it makes amazingly better bows, so i personally wouldn't bother with it. UNLESS you experimenters on here discover that it's a good thing to do and that it makes better bows lol.

[ionicmuffin]

i think its been prooven by a few on here that seasoning your stave makes the bow a longer lasting one, provided you dont ruin the tiller or something

[JW_Halverson]

Did I hear Mullet humming the tune "Buffalo Gals"?

This is one of those things that is going to be really difficult to prove/disprove because there are so many variables when you build two bows from the same tree.  One could be air dried, the other sunk at the 400 meter level of Lake Superior for 20 years.  NOBODY is good enough to build two perfectly identical bows. 

And unless we can get some major labs to do some serious chemical analysis and structural engineering tests we wil be left with our own convictions of faith on whether it works or not.