My first osage stave! ... It is finished!!...

[Draffish]

looking very good been away for a week looks like youve done some nice work while ive been away lots of nice reading to catch up on your 28  page mega build    
again looking a beauty lots of character

[Echatham]

just picked up a 12' 2x10, a steel yardstick, and a couple more clamps... you can never have enough clamps... gonna get to building the form in a little while

[Zradix]

cool
   

[Echatham]

how do i go about heating the bow on the form? clamp the center then heat 5-7" at a time for 5-7 minutes with a heat gun, then clamp and move to the next section? seams like i read something like that before, but i can never find explanations of how do do things like that when im looking for them.

[CardboardDuck]

basically, heat section - clamp - heat - clamp and so on. Toast it till its brown, don't char it, but toast it good. As long as it's bending nicely at floor tiller you shouldn't have any problems.

[Echatham]

finished my form last night but phone was dead so i couldn't get the pics up... but here it is.
 

 

had to chisel out a little dip for the knot to sit in so the handle would sit flat on the form. fits nicely.

[Echatham]

then i figured i would try straightening a litle bit. basically just clamped the limbs up against the back of the form after heating... with some strategically placed wedges. sorry no pictures of the process... but here is the results:

before:
   

after:
   

may need a little tweeking later on, but at least the whole bow sits in the center of the form.

[Echatham]

the specs on the form are taken exactly from Pearldrums' form from the build referenced above.  only thing i changed was the last two points.... mine are (31.25 , -5) and (33 , -6) and thats just because my bow is a tad shorter than his.  also i cut off the corners of the back of the form to make room for my clamps for sideways clamping.

[Roy from Pa]

I guess it's Ok:)

[Echatham]

Thanks Roy!

[Zradix]

Boy that looks a lot better.
   

[fujimo]

just one pointer, with that backing board on the caul, watch when you are heating the belly, as the heat deflects off that back board, and hits the back of the bow, an' you cant see that you are toasting the back of yer bow.
I have taken to drilling big( 1/2") holes on the backboard so that the heat can dissipate, and I try and run my heat gun more vertically and more from the closed side/backboard side- so that the heat is directed away from the backboard.

no one else seems to have had this problem on here- jus' me.
so its prolly operator error- but just watch for it.

[Echatham]

good tip. drilling holes is a pretty good idea. wonder if anyone has had that problem with the form itself and not the backing board.... could drill some holes down into it too.

[Echatham]

im hoping to get the bow heated up and bent to the form tonight.  do i need to let it sit a few days to rehydrate before tillering again? seems like i read that somewhere.... but not sure.

[Echatham]

[Zradix]

sweet

[Steve Kendrot]

Fujimo, you aren't alone. I recently toasted the back of a self bow via reflected heat. Wasn't sure how I did it till I read your post!!

[fujimo]

yup i was showing a friend how to straighten his stave( well- a stave i gave him!!) and we toasted the back a bit- but we cleaned it up pretty good without violating the ring- then backed it with some silk- and its still shooting well in australia- and has taken a number of goats with it already!

your bow and form are really looking great.
yup let it sit- thats the advice i got from everybody- i dont know how short a time you can leave it- if you are in a hurry to get going- i always leave them for at least 3- 4 days- sometimes way longer- just depends.
and i find something else to do!!

[Steve Kendrot]

Is it truly necessary to toast it till its brown to soften it enough to bend and straighten?  Recently straightened a couple bow blanks without taking it that far. Just heated till it was too hot to touch but not enough to change color. Make sure you coat it with oil of some sort. I think that helps with moisture loss too so you don't have to wait so long to rehydrate? I didn't. But then again.... I'm new at this.

[Bowjunkie]

Steve, you're doing fine.... for bending, there's no need to toast it, just heat til you can't put your hand on it. I never heat them until they change color, and I never put oil on them. The fact that I've done it hundreds of times successfully without oil tells me it's probably an unnecessary step