Main Discussion Area > Bows
Fire hardening vs heat gun tempering
PaSteve:
Really good information Dave. I like the idea of building a separate fire then transferring the coals. Sounds like a good way to have better control over the fire hardening process.
organic_archer:
I can only offer my experience, which isn’t to say either method is better than the other. Heat treating with a heat gun takes more hands-on time but gives you more control and less chance of damaging the blank, but also doesn’t do as deep of a treatment.
A bed of coals heats the whole bow all at once and really deeply. I do think it makes them hold more reflex and perform better, but it just dries them out sooo much. In my experience, when it goes well it goes really well, but it doesn’t take much to go too far and end up with firewood. It definitely seemed to exaggerate the chance of failure if the bow had anything more than slight character.
Went through a phase where I made a pile of fire tempered bows. Some really fast shooters were born in those days, but also lost a fair amount of premium wood tinkering with the technique. I’ve since switched back to less intense heat treatments with a heat gun, and less intense drying in a hot box if the blank needs to lose a little leftover moisture.
Edited for more detail.
superdav95:
--- Quote from: organic_archer on November 21, 2022, 10:42:08 pm ---I can only offer my experience, which isn’t to say either method is better than the other. Heat treating with a heat gun takes more hands-on time but gives you more control and less chance of damaging the blank, but also doesn’t do as deep of a treatment.
A bed of coals heats the whole bow all at once and really deeply. I do think it makes them hold more reflex and perform better, but it just dries them out sooo much. In my experience, when it goes well it goes really well, but it doesn’t take much to go too far and end up with firewood. It definitely seemed to exaggerate the chance of failure if the bow had anything more than slight character.
Went through a phase where I made a pile of fire tempered bows. Some really fast shooters were born in those days, but also lost a fair amount of premium wood tinkering with the technique. I’ve since switched back to less intense heat treatments with a heat gun, and less intense drying in a hot box if the blank needs to lose a little leftover moisture.
Edited for more detail.
--- End quote ---
I agree. I’ve taken a few past the safe point and paid the price. Some deliberately and some just not being careful enough. I’ve got some bows that defy logic though and still don’t know how they are still shooting they are so dark. I would never send them out like that but they still shoot good. Your also correct that it does dry them out a lot. I found this to be a good thing though mostly so long as you seal them well and let them acclimate for a few days before finishing the tiller and shooting them. I’ve jumped the gun before too and rushed it and snapped them as they are so dry and brittle. As for character staves with a lot of sideways bend or snaky twisting I would use a heat gun for a lighter cook and perform some in shop manipulation to get them little better shape with heat. I’ve had some that had some nasty propeller twist that I was able to virtually eliminate with heat treatment which is a nice feature. Sounds like you e had some good results and good shooters with you’re process too.
Cheers
Muskyman:
I’ll probably stick with the heat gun for my Osage staves for now and try the coals for white wood staves. I did watch a video Keith Shannon and Thad Beckum did where they took a small diameter hickory tree and cut it down and took it to about floor tiller, then clamped it on a form and cooked it dry over coals and made a bow with it in 12 hours. Shot it through a chronograph at almost 180 feet per second with a 10 grain per pound arrow. Now how long a bow like that might last I have no idea. I don’t plan on trying that but it did get me thinking about how fast I might dry out a hickory stave using heat from coals.
RyanY:
I think practically there’s little to no difference from a performance standpoint given the mechanism of how it impacts the bow and all of the other variables that can influence performance. Impractically, the guys winning flight shoots are using heat guns as far as I am aware. (=)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version