Quick drying hickory

[Eric Krewson]

I have cut a lot of osage and had some checking when I tried to rush the drying process too much.

Not much experience with quick drying hickory so I put a green test bow blank(small dimensions) in my drying box a month ago, no checking so far. I keep the box at 100 degrees.

Yesterday I put a full sized bow blank(back and ends shellacked) in my drying box as a test, we will see how it goes.

I have 17 more I would like to get dried just don't want to damage them in the process.

 

Any of you guy have any experience quick drying hickory? Any problems?

[Dean Marlow]

Eric
  Hickory is one of the better woods that I have dealt with when it comes to speeding up the drying process. You got them shellaced which is good. Hickory does like to twist on me when speed drying so if you could clamp them down some way it will save you a-lot of work later on. Dean

[Art B]

Eric, I know you can rough out a hickory bow and be able to heat treat the belly in 30 days. That's not using a drying bow but rather keeping inside the house @ 70-80 degrees and 40-45% R/H. I never noticed any drying checks in the backs of hickory billets when I used a drying tube years ago. Used a 100w bulb and keep it in the tube for 3 days. No idea what the temperature was but the billets were plenty dry. Wood was billet size and at least one month seasoned before going in the tube.

But just dried hickory is still soft. I remember fretting many bows using green but dried wood. Heat treating the belly seem to help with that.

[JamesV]

Eric..............

What kind of moisture content are you trying to get?

James

[Pat B]

6%M/C for hickory is ideal. Most other wood will blow at that M/C.

[okie64]

Ive had pretty good luck speed drying hickory. Occasionally a stave will try to warp or twist but Ive never had one check on the back.

[Eric Krewson]

My moisture meter gave up the ghost so I will leave my bow blanks in my drying box until I need one. I suspect they will be way below 10% when I pull one out in a month or two.

[scrub-buster]

I experimented with drying a roughed out hickory bow last summer.  I would put it in my car on hot sunny days.  It never cracked or warped.  I don't have a moisture meter.  I weighed it on a digital kitchen scale to check the progress.

[LittleBen]

Hickory! My favorite. Never had any trouble with it checking on me either. Always wondered if that related to the tension strength, or if it suggests goo adherance between grain lines, or maybe it just doesnt shrink much as it dries.

Anyway, hickory begs to be heat treated. I find the performance goes way up with good heat treating on hickory.

Best of luck Eric! Thats alot of staves, you'll have alot of work ahead.

[Duncan]

I have not speed dried any hickory. Those of you that have, could you tell any difference in the amount of string follow in the finished bow?
I've had much less string follow in staves that were dried slowly, (over a year), and those that were dried indoors in winter for say 3 months.