Stave drying: Juniper versus hardwoods

[MXer]

So after my first attempt at drying a juniper stave...it checked real bad.  Then I read to just work juniper down a ways before letting dry and voila....I had a good piece to turn into a bow. 

Why would one let hardwood staves dry for years besides the obvious that it takes a long time in humid climates.  It's real dry here in Idaho and I want to know that if I got a maple limb, can I work it down a ways to dry quicker like the juniper?  ..and possibly not check

[MXer]

Huh..nobody knows why they let their staves dry for years?  Maybe you guys are just wasting time. 

Anyway, the unknown maple limb I got starting checking pretty bad so I started working it down.  It would crack again, and I work it down some more, cutting out the cracks as I went.  It's about 3/4 to an inch thick now and has held steady for a week with no more checking.  Success in my book.  It's drying nicely and I'm gonna take it slow from here to try to make a bow out of it.

[ajooter]

I don't see any reason you can't work to down to bow dimensions early on.  You may need to lash to a firm or caul to prevent twisting.  I also keep the end sealed with glue or paint and the back sealed with glue as well (usually good Ole elmers).

[MXer]

Yep I threw some tite bond on the ends.  I've been watching it daily to see if it twists.  I don't have a form, I'd just have to come up with something quick!  So far it's really straight down the bowstring line.  It did bend backwards (reflex?) quite a bit at the handle, but I think I can work with that.

[Oglala Bowyer]

For me it's more coincidence than anything. I have a plethora of staves and can't help that I'll get to that one piece over yonder two years down the road 

[E. Jensen]

Wood checks because it shrinks at different rates.  It shrinks at different rates because its moisture content (MC) changes differently.  The larger the piece of wood, the more likely you'll get this differential, since water can only diffuse through wood so fast.  If you have a 2x2" stave, you might need say conservatively 2 years to air dry it, and you have to slow the process or the outside will shrink and the inside won't i.e. checking.  On a 1x1 piece, you have 1/4 the volume, 1/4 of the moisture.

[Springbuck]

   I never dry ANY woods for years on purpose.  I reduce staves, clamp them and let them dry, or they just sit around until I get to that point.

 I live in Utah, and it's dry here, too, but I have never had juniper check like that, so I'm curious as to why, too.  If you tried to dry a very large piece, like 5" log or something, I could see it.

One other thing that is funny here, is that drying wood is a subject which is discussed almost daily on this site, and one couldn't go back much more than a page before finding a thread about it.  So, I'm surprised you hadn't already read (in other threads) that most of us reduce our staves to dry, especially sapling and branch staves, OR that any wood will check if dried too quickly and left too large, OR, that large staves which are not reduced should be sealed.  Those are cardinal rules, revisited regularly.

[MXer]

Great, thanks for the info everybody!  Yeah, springbuck, it really wasn't a stave per se...  It was a full limb cut on the ends.  The ends is where it started to crack.  It was my first one and I didn't know what to expect.  The next one I simply sealed the ends with wax and they've sat for months now without a problem.  The piece of maple, though, was soaking wet...fresh cut with water dripping out of the ends.