Stress fractures on osage bow?

[Don Armstrong]

The osage bow I've been working on is becoming a real challenge. First it was the thin rings. Now I've got several stress fractures in the back of the bow. They are vertical so I'm thinking I could clean with acetone and fill with CA. I got the fractures from heating the belly several times to straighten and flip the tips. Will CA work, or is there a better solution. Thanks, Don

[Stiks-n-Strings]

CA should do fine Don Just soak it real good with something like Titebond CA. You can get tit at woodcrafters and it comes in thin, med, and heavy. I reddomend keeping the thin and med around for just these kinds of occasions.

 Stiks

[Pat B]

Sounds like drying cracks(checks). Seal the back with shellac until you are ready to add a finish. CA will work to hold the checks together. I use what I can buy at Wally World and keep it on hand and handy all the time. Same with Bulls Eye spray shellac!

[Eric Krewson]

You don't need to clean the area with acetone, just fill the cracks with superglue. I have gotten the same type of cracks when I did a real radical bend. Superglued them and never had a failure in the cracked area.

[Don Armstrong]

Thanks guys,I was only going to clean with acetone due to some oil, that was used to bend, might still be on the wood. Don

[SEMO_HUNTER]

I've got the same thing on my Osage Longbow Don. I'm thinking it may be a characteristic of Osage wood? I thought maybe it was because mine was too green when I went to work on it, but after reading your post I'm starting to re-evlauate my situation?

I've even got staves drying up in the rafters that are doing it, even though I coated them with Polyurethane to stop the checking, some of them still have vertical splits running up and down the stave. Maybe it's just because the Osage is so tight grained and really super hard? No clue.
Let me know what works for yours, so I can do the same to mine.

[John Scifres]

It sounds like maybe you are concentrating your corrections in too small a space.  For me the goal of bending isn't to completely straighten out the osage.  It's to get some reflex and to get the string to track in the middle of the handle.  This is easiest to do over the full length of the piece.  I like to leave the character as long as I can make a nice bow from it.

[John Scifres]

Drying checks just mean the outside is drying faster than the inside.  Coat with shellac and keep the staves in a cool area for a couple months.  Rafters and green wood aren't a good mix.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Originally posted by John Scifres:
Drying checks just mean the outside is drying faster than the inside.  Coat with shellac and keep the staves in a cool area for a couple months.  Rafters and green wood aren't a good mix.

While you are on that subject John, how long would you say is long enough for a stave to dry before you can go to work on making a bow out of it?
I'm talking from stump to bow, green to finished product.

[Don Armstrong]

The stave was about 9 years old. Don

[SEMO_HUNTER]

That should have been plenty long for it to be completely dry unless you had been keeping it in the freezer?   :D  

I had heard that 3-4 months was long enough?
Any truth to that? Anybody.

[Don Armstrong]

A gentleman gave my boy about 10 staves and a couple of logs, a couple years ago. He said he had them in his building for about 8 years so you would think they were dry. I think john hit it on the head. I was working to small of an area and trying to make the stave into a perfect bow like a board. Don