2024 What did you do today

[JW_Halverson]

Hey, Kirkll, I was at a buddy's place showing him that sick maple you are playing with. All the blood left his head for other regions and he fell to the floor like a sack of last year's rutabagas. He's recovered slightly with the aid of some 18 yr old single malt and asked me to send you a private message with a question or two.

[Kirkll]

Hey, Kirkll, I was at a buddy's place showing him that sick maple you are playing with. All the blood left his head for other regions and he fell to the floor like a sack of last year's rutabagas. He's recovered slightly with the aid of some 18 yr old single malt and asked me to send you a private message with a question or two.

I about spit my drink all over the screen…

“Hit the floor like a sack of last year’s rutabagas”…. Jesus!  That was too funny….

I still have a large quantity of that curly maple. I harvested a bunch of it myself years ago and cut it up in slabs with a chain saw when it was green, then hauled it to a mill and had them resaw them and run through a planer. Then I air dried the stuff keeping a fan on it with stickers… I was amazed how much of it came out good with no checks or serious cracks….this stuff is about 12 years old and has some wild grain…. I’ve even got some with bullets in it. One of those trees had a target on it and they shot a lot of pistol rounds into it.  It kind of ticked off the guy at the mill cutting lead with his band saw…. 

I retuned your pm…. I have plenty more wild stuff in my pile, and just scored a huge batch of black walnut too.      Kirk

[onetone]

Showy wood for sure! It looks like it actually has terrain! Nice bow too.

[dbeaver]

So I got to bending the maple stave tips and I found out some things.   This stave was down around 10-11% moisture and at first I steamed one side and I was being too cautious about over doing it bent it 10 minutes ahead of time and lifted a growth layer across the belly. That's now getting a belly overlay because I'm gonna finish this bow.  I boiled the otherside and went way smoother.
Tire tube clamp with 2 layers of maple laminations to get back to original thickness

The boiled tip bent way better and only lifted a small splinter

[Kirkll]

All the steam bending I’ve done I soaked the wood overnight before putting it in a steamer. I’m not surprised it went better. How long did you soak it? 

I have a set up I built that uses 7”  thin wall metal heat duct pipe in 5’ lengths. The longest stuff I steamed was iron wood rails for a drift boat that were 16’ in length, but I did it one end at a time.  I Boiled water in a 3 pound coffee can on a camp stove. The 7” 90 degree elbow or Tee fits that coffee cap perfectly.

[dbeaver]

oddly enough everything was dry to start and the boiled tip just ended up better, i bet i didnt let the heat penetrate enough of the other limb, or there was something waiting to happen with grain prientation, either way i have that overlays curing and ill clean it up and bring it back to uniform thickness before i get to tillering.

[Longcruise]

Waiting for glue to cure so I spun out some poplar shafts.  34" long in the round part.  I call these squirrel arrows cause if they are shot at a squirrel never to be seen again it's no big deal.  Five minutes max then on to the next squirrel.

[Kirkll]

Many years ago I got into building woodies and I bought a 1000 3/8” cedar shafts that they use for planting trees and staking them. Being already somewhat round , they were easier to run through my arrow milling hardware. I think I still got 700 of them left.
I ended up just using them for my wife’s flower garden stakes and in the vegetable garden and gave up on building woodies completely. Never was happy with the consistency of woodies….  But it was entertaining building them….  Kirk

[Longcruise]

These are not particularly well matched in weight or spine but any set from the same board are usually close enough and I  can usually get them to fly ok from at least one of the bows on hand.  About five years ago I did a set of six with poplar that happened to be very well matched but that's the exception.   For my hunters I've been using Wapiti premiums exclusively.   They usually match up better than advertised.

Some of the "squirrel arrows" end up like this.  Occasionally I launch one across a valley or canyon just to watch it fly.

[Kirkll]

I had an old cantankerous neighbor that came over to our house right after we moved in and told me that i needed to keep my dog on a chain or penned up ... and That if it came over onto his property he'd shoot it.... Hell of a welcome to the neighborhood eh? Well i told him to get his skinny arse off my property or id be tempted to fill his arse with buck shot.... Never did get along with that guy.

Every now and then right before he started baling his hay, i'd get rid of all my bent aluminums shafts shooting them over into his 26 acre hay field....It was great sport listening to his mower hit those arrows and listen to him swearing...    it really made noise if they made it into the bailing machine....   Kirk

[Mad Max]

 

 

[dbeaver]

Used steam to get a better tip alignment and cleaned the bark and cambium up on the back.    Really chewing on whether or not to fire harden.  I'd love to give this maple a little extra compression resistance and use the hardening with patient tillering to limit set.  But I've also overcooked a few bows that simply had reflex and boy did they explode on the tiller tree. So I'm concerned with overdoing it on a recurve profile. 

[Pat B]

You have to let most woods rehydrate for a while before straining them after tempering. If you live in a humid area a week should be enough but if your R/H is low, like where I live, this time of year probably 2 weeks would be better. Tempering is a good idea for most whitewoods because it does add to the compression strength. You can also add reflex at the time you temper it.

[dbeaver]

I thought about adding some reflex maybe just an inch or two but I've already curved the tips and I wonder if the tillering will be a little wonky for me to see what I need to in bend shape.  Either way I think the tempering is in order and I may start after work

[Pat B]

Be sure to clamp the stave to something rigid while you temper it and letting it cool and rehydrate or it may warp or twist. When tempering I like to start by clamping at the handle and work out each limb separately, clamping as I heat out to the end of the limb then go to the other limb.

[Mad Max]

I have never done the FIRE harden method and I don't think it is a good way because it's hard to see what's going on.
Clay Hays has some awesome Videos out there. 
The best way is to use a heat gun like pat said.
When you use a chop saw and you have that tri-pod stand with a roller on top to hold the other end of a board up.
Clamp or tape your heat gun to that over the belly of the stave and work your way down.
I would say 4 to 6" above the stave.

This is Ash I did years ago.
The few light colored areas is where I scraped it some with the finish tiller.

[dbeaver]

How much tillering did you do before heating the limbs. This is bending relatively stout in the floor tiller and I'd prefer it come in a heavy bow and like I said want limited set so I'm trying to get a deep heat treat before the majority of finer tillering

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I’m generally get to a solid brace then heat treat. Long string to about 18-20” which is generally good enough to brace. I’ll even out the brace then heat treat. Generally it’s thin enough to heat well through but still soon enough to not damage the wood before heat treating.

Kyle

[Mad Max]

How much tillering did you do before heating the limbs. This is bending relatively stout in the floor tiller and I'd prefer it come in a heavy bow and like I said want limited set so I'm trying to get a deep heat treat before the majority of finer tillering

I had it bending good then heat treat. That bow is 2-1/2" wide at the fades and 68" NTN.
I like to follow the grain on the back so a little snaky, It's a modified pyramid.

[dbeaver]

I appreciate all the advice guys and I am keeping all that in mind and also taking my own route.  I gave the bow a gentle roast over coals last night for about 3 hours, I was very diligent on checking the limb temp with an infrared thermometer, and was using past experience on discoloration to determine what temp I liked seeing.   I had the bow generally 12-15 inches above the coals and I found that I was keeping the surface temp of the limb around 300°.  After all said and done the reflex held up and I got a nice tan coloring.

I haven't got the bow more than floor tillered, like I said I want to keep the bow stout as possible through the steps.   After waiting a bit to work the tiller I'm going to run it over the coals again and this time I am going to look for 350° on the limbs because I think the color could be a deeper caramel without blackening.