Wood bow issues

[Wolftrail]

If a wood bow loses a couple pounds after shooting it in; would it generally take more set or string follow..?
And does string follow disappear after the bow is unstrung.?
Sometimes I think its a bit of both..   :confused:

[Mad Max]

What kind of wood?

Yes after shooting it will have some string follow and come back.
If it's well tillered.

[Wolftrail]

Maple or Yew.

[Pat B]

If you exercise the bow as you remove wood and sweat it as you build you can reduce the set. It is impossible to eliminate set in a wood bow but you can reduce the amount of set by proper tillering and handling the bow.

[Eric Krewson]

I have made a few bows out what I would call "exceptional" osage, stuff that I can't give a description to, it was just "different". These few bows never took any set and were tillered exactly the same as all my other bows that did take a little set over time.

Osage can vary a good bit in its characteristics  as anyone who has worked exclusively with it for years can verify.

[Wolftrail]

Originally posted by Pat B:
If you exercise the bow as you remove wood and sweat it as you build you can reduce the set. It is impossible to eliminate set in a wood bow but you can reduce the amount of set by proper tillering and handling the bow.

.........but to what length, some have found out later that the bow only hacked 28" hence it was pulled to 29" and it snapped like a dead rigid coon in the desert.
 
I tell most tiller your bows to at least an inch or more past 28". After all 28" is the industry standard.
 

[Pat B]

Never pull it past your ultimate draw weight so as you exercise you only pull it a few inches about 20 to 30 times then mark the stiff spots, do a few scrapes and pull to draw weight(a few more inches) and exercise to that draw 20 to 30 times and move on.
 Tiller your bow to whatever your your draw length is. My draw is 26" so the 28" standard doesn't matter.

[Bowjunkie]

Like Eric, I've made a few bows of osage and yew that took virtually no set and lost no weight during shooting in, or with considerable use, and they weren't made or treated any differently than the other osage or yew bows I've made. I figured they were just exceptional pieces for reasons I may never know.

The osage bow that comes to mind is the one I've used the most, many thousands of arrows through it since '04, still stands straight unstrung, and it has actually gained a few pounds since then. The stave came from Ohio and has very thick rings and an exceptional early to latewood ratio. 66" ntn, 63# @ 28", less than 1 1/4" wide, and fully radiused belly.

[Pat B]

One of my best bows was a thin ringed osage that I added a rawhide backing because the rings were so small It was almost impossible to get a clean back. I had over a thousand shots through her and she had an inch of reflex when unstrung. Unfortunately I got carried away late one evening and pulled it an inch over draw length and she decided to become a multiple take down.

[Wolftrail]

Originally posted by Pat B:
One of my best bows was a thin ringed osage that I added a rawhide backing because the rings were so small It was almost impossible to get a clean back. I had over a thousand shots through her and she had an inch of reflex when unstrung. Unfortunately I got carried away late one evening and pulled it an inch over draw length and she decided to become a multiple take down.

I hear ya plain and simple. But is it not better to tiller the bow at least one inch past your own draw weight.
Some day we will all pass away; whom ever will get our collection of bows. Most of these people dont know about draw length, weight or otherwise.

But then again I'll be six feet under when and if they break a bow due their lack of knowledge.

[Pat B]

My draw is 26" and I always tiller my bows out to 28"...just in case. That night Evan Williams bet me I couldn't pull it farther.    :rolleyes:

[Carson81]

If you tiller a bow very well to 28", it should be able to be drawn an inch or two farther without breaking, but maybe takes a little set. If it breaks from an additional inch or two of draw, then it was either not tillered as well as it could have been or you were really pushing the limits of that wood/design.

[Pat B]

It was very thin ringed osage with a few pins and a rawhide backing. The break started at a pin on the back. "A bow fully drawn is 9/10th broken".

[Eric Krewson]

I have had one osage bow gain about 8#, I had the wood in my shop for many years so I know it was seasoned.

My most remarkable piece of wood was a splinter left from a belly split, Tossed aside, it developed 13 small drying checks in the back that I filled with super glue.

One day I decided to see if I bow could make a bow from this ugly piece of wood.

I made a 62" bow that pulled 62#@25", it had an almost ELB limb profile to make use of the small amount of usable wood in the stave.

I took my first shot with the bow and knew it was something different.

15 years later it still shoots like a rocket launcher, has no string follow and is my first osage bow to turn to that deep, dark mahogany color.

 

 

[Wolftrail]

That Osage bow EW took on a great looking patina.    
What did you put on it for finish after completing it..?