I took the advice of everyone and started heating...here has been my experience so far:
One limb of my bow had/has a slight bend (towards the belly) in the 8 inches or so below the string nock. The other limb is fairly straight.
I built a jig similar to what was in TBB4 that would ride the belly and keep the heat gun a constant distance away from the bow. I started out with it about 5 inches away and spent over an hour heating. It worked well, but it was obvious that the heat was too far away because it took too long for the heat to penetrate and the wood to turn color. I cut the jig down so that the heat gun was around 3" away and that seemed to work much better. I heated it to a light chocolate color (not too dark) and started the other side.
I repeated the process on the other side (with the bent limb) and all went well. But, I wanted to try and do something about the bend in the limb. Taking the advice of others, I clamped the bow on my bench so that the bend was at the edge. I slathered the end with olive oil, added weight to the tip (to draw the bow flat towards the back) and started heating. It worked pretty well but after it was dry, it was apparent that the olive oil significantly darkened the chocolate color of the tempering. It also changed the color of the bow wood itself. Not bad, just didn't match the rest of the bow.
That left me with a conundrum. Should I use olive oil to treat the rest of the bow or just leave it? Well, I went ahead and re-treated both limbs using olive oil. I also weighted both sides a bit to give it a slight negative tiller. I couldn't find where that would hurt anything and I actually like the dark chocolaty-ness of the color.
Now it's done and ready for final tiller. I'm taking the advice of others and am letting it sit for several days to re-hydrate. It looks pretty dang awesome, and I hope it holds up.
Thanks for all the info!
Topic: Heat Treating Hackberry (Read 621 times)
