Advice please on barking staves

[Silvius]

Hello Guys,
I am an Englishman starting out to make a first primitive bow or two. I am trying to make the best job I can of it.

On boxing day (the first new moon after the winter solstice when the trees should be driest) I took down a young European Ash from a crowded stand which had a branchless  section of trunk that was quite uniform -about 8 to 9 inches in diameter and was about 20 feet in length. I split this section with wedges into roughly 6'6'' staves and took some of the best ones home, sealed their ends with hot wax and laid them between the rafters of my garage. (Does this sound OK so far?)

I then remembered how, a few years ago, some Ash that I had cut for firewood had gone full of beetle holes while it was drying and thought how I didn't want this to happen to my staves. So I started to take the bark off one. I was surprised how juicy the cambium was even at this time of year. I found that while the bark would not peel, I could take it down to just above the cambium layer and then strip the cambium with a thumb nail or the back of the drawknife.

Is it best amount to peel all the bark or should I leave a thin layer to reduce the risk of longitudinal cracks?

Should I be sealing the back of the staves with wax or even tape?

Thank you for any advice.

[Flem]

I vote for barking, or de-barking on the next full moon.

[Silvius]

OK maybe I was a bit too keen with the new moon after mid winter thing but I thought that less water in the tree would make for less chance of cracking as it dried.

[OkKeith]

I know other guys that have dried A LOT of bow wood will chime in...

My experience has been that taking the bark off has worked best. On some species of wood we have over here, like Osage Orange (Bois D'arc, Hedge, Hedge Apple.. all the same tree) I even draw knife it down to the heart wood that will be used for the bow.

Is your garage heated or just subject to outside air temps? I lug all my wood I want to dry into the attic space of the house. It is dryer and (hopefully) a more constant temp given the vagaries of the seasons.

All else seems right on track to me. I use carpenters wood glue for my cut ends but the wax should work fine. The only other suggestion I have is to take a look at what surface is "up" and consider how the staves are supported. I made a lot of extra work for myself with one batch of staves by letting them bow the wrong way while they were drying. I should have left them either better supported so they took no set or let them take a set in the direction that would have resulted in set back limbs. As it turned out, I had to steam the staves and re-set the limbs back forward to fix what would have been excessive string follow.

Good luck and welcome! I unfortunately bark regardless of the moon... I am not popular with the neighbors.

OkKeith

[Silvius]

Thank you OkKeith. I will definitely take your advice and put them the right way up to bow more towards a recurve than the other way.

The garage is a rather old unheated building whose asbestos roof has developed a couple of leaks (but not where I hung the staves). I can take them into the house but I think it will get quite hot in the loft in the summer. It is, however, cool there now and would be less damp.

What do you think? House or garage? I could take them down to the house from the loft in say late March when the heating will not be coming on any more?

Thanks

[Pat B]

Remove the bark and cambium and seal the back. Some folks use wood glue to seal the back. I prefer shellac and it may take a few coats. The good thing about shellac is it is easily remover with alcohol or light scraping and sanding or you could leave it on and add finish over it after the bow is done.
 It really doesn't matter when you harvest bow wood. The moisture has to be removed no matter when. Let the wood dry for a month or so in the rafters then you should be able to bring it into a controlled environment for further seasoning. Just be sure the ends and back are well sealed.

[Eric Krewson]

I ruined some mighty fine osage by putting it green in my attic, it checked deeply.  I found storing staves a covered place outside is OK, under the house is OK but the wood won't dry out very quickly. I ruined the best osage I ever cut by storing it green with just the bark peeled off and the sapwood back sealed with one coat of wood glue in a outside garage, the garage was closed up with no air movement and got really hot inside during the summer.

I have some wood that I cut 20 years ago, once I got a backlog I would keep my staves under the house for long term storage and bring a year or so worth of staves I wanted to work on into my shop to wait their turn.

Once when I had surgery and couldn't make bows I roughed a bunch of staves out to bow blanks on my bandsaw and put them on a rack in my shop. I still have a bunch of these bow blanks waiting their turn.

I suggest you take a stave or two down to bow blank stage to facilitate quicker drying.

Here is my pile of bow blanks;

[Silvius]

Thank you for the advice Gentlemen. I have barked 8 staves, sealed them with shellac, put them the right way up between beams, taken the least complicated looking pair and started to rough them out.

I went back to the wood to get a few more from where I had put them under a large tarp tent. These staves were drier than those I had put in the garage and the bark was already harder to get off, so I am glad to have got it off while I did.

In roughing one of these out, I made a silly mistake. I had clamped it in a vice to put some saw cuts in to help split pieces off with the axe.  I wrapped the bow in cardboard for fear of damaging the back and did the vice up gently. I didn't tighten it enough and the stave twisted loose, dropped and banged into a screw that holds a rest for my grind wheel. The screw threads dented the back of the bow. The dents happen to be pretty much parallel with the grain. However, is the stave done for?

Thank you again.

[Silvius]

[Pat B]

Probably not done for. Try steaming the dents out. You can use a damp(not wet) cloth and a cloths iron to do this. After it dries wipe a cotton ball over it to be sure the fibers aren't broken. If any are a light sanding over a 3" to 4" area should smooth it out without affecting the integrity...unless the "cuts" go deeper.

[Silvius]

Thanks for the advice about steaming. I may not be doing this right. I took the iron and held it on the damp cloth over the marks, till the cloth dried and then swapped to a damp piece of cloth again and repeated. I probably spent about 10 minutes doing it. There were 6 marks -4 deep and 2 shallow. The two shallow ones are now pretty much gone but the deeper ones remain. Was this the right technique?

Thanks.

[Pat B]

Yes, that was the right technique. If the 4 didn't change then they are probably too deep or it broke the fibers. Once is dries try the cotton ball trick to see if the fibers were broken.