Bending Osage Dry Heat vs Steaming????

[recurvericky]

What are the pros and cons for bending osage with dry heat vs steaming? I am building a BBO bow using slats. I tried both yesterday and the results were the same, cracks and wasted wood.

[Art B]

What's the history on your wood Ricky? Sounds kinda green and/or unseasoned. Have you tried sealing the wood with varnish or shellac to slow down moisture loss from steaming?

[recurvericky]

I purchased the slats, so I am not sure. Do you varnish the entire piece?

[Art B]

Just the section to be steamed.

[recurvericky]

I will try it again with a scrap piece from the first slat.

[Osagetree]

Someone said, steam for green and dry heat for seasoned wood. No matter what combination you may use, anything can be taken too far. Play around with the scrap and you'll catch on.

[Pat B]

Why are you steaming this slat? If you are building a R/D style bow you can pretiller the belly slat so it bends easily, then glue it up with the boo backing in the R/D shape. You don't need to pre bend it with steam or dry heat.

[scrub-buster]

I use dry heat with dry osage with great results.  I work with staves, not slats.  I straightened out this piece with dry heat.

Before:

 

After:

 

[recurvericky]

I forgot to mention that I was attempting to recurve the limbs.

[recurvericky]

ttt

[Pat B]

With a board stave you might have to put in a kerf/spline recurve. Check out some of 4est's kerf/splined recurved bows.

[Bowjunkie]

Yes, with bamboo backed recurves, it's better, and easier, to run the end of the slat into the bandsaw, sawing a kerf down into the slat about 12". Then at the same time you glue on the bamboo backing, you glue a thin osage 12" lam into the kerf. The kerf makes the outer limb easy to bend into the recurve shape and the 12" lam and extra glue joint will keep the recurves from 'pulling out' with use.

Much easier, more predictable, and more reliable than ANY type of heat... for this type of bow.

It's all in Dean Torges' Hunting the Bamboo Backed Bow DVD.

Now, aside from that... as far as bending osage for a recurve... say I was going to make a SELFBOW osage recurve, or sinew backed recurve or something.... I would remove a bunch of wood before I attempted bending it. I normally get them roughly shaped and bending slightly, floor-tillered or so, THEN heat and bend. If it's dry wood, I use the heat gun... heat it slowly and bend it slowly. If it's relatively green wood, I steam it or boil it.

Perhaps you're just trying to bend too much wood. What are the dimensions?

[Pete W]

I have been using a heat gun with good results on several woods, but I keep hearing that I should greaes the wood first. So far I have not done this, because I have been concerned the grease/oil etc will make it hard to do a finish on after.
 Should I use  some sort of grease/oil or continue to bend  dry with the heat gun?
Pete

[Pat B]

Pete, I always use veg oil when heat bending wood. I think it helps the wood hold the heat longer, prevent scorching and distribute the heat evenly. Generally I remove enough wood during final tiller to remove most of the oil. I still wipe down the bow with alcohol or acetone to remove any oil or grease that might be on it. Your hands alone add oil to the wood. I use Tru-Oil finish on most of my bows and never had a problem stemming from using oil while heating the wood.

[scrub-buster]

I had a sinew backing peal off because I used oil while heat bending.  I didn't get it all out before I put the sinew on.  I won't do that again.

[Buzz Killington]

Pat B, it also gives it a nice, rich flavor that you just don't get with dry heat.  

[Bert Frelink]

I did my Recurve just like this.
 
and then this.
 
Resulted in this.
 
Good luck with your "new" project.
Bert.  

[Pat B]

Dang Bert, you have got to warn me when you are posting that bow. d;^)
  Bert, are you bending sawn stock or a stave? I have never tried to recurve sawn stock with heat(or at all).
 Buzz, I use olive oil so it really gets the mouth watering sometimes. Osage and olive oil! With a little garlic...