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First Self Bow

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superdav95:
Yes!  Fire hardening works and really is the ticket for your next bow especially in high humidity climate areas. I’m in Ontario Canada and it’s the way to go for sure. We are humid here as well.  You would just basically get to floor tiller stage or even little more to where you can get a string on it and then fire harden.  I’ve tried multiple combinations and variations on this depending on type of bow.  If doing a self bow for your next one with hickory make yourself a backset form with mild reflex to clamp your bow to and get to floor tiller and bake it.  About 3-4 hours cook is good. Low and slow is generally the rule.  You can just dig a bit of a pit and use rocks as your lining and walls or use block of cement.  The blocks at the ends are nice to adjust your height away from the coals as you monitor the cook.  You do t want to scorch it but you want a good deep cook with hickory as it can handle it.  Be sure to clamp out any unwanted prop twist or bends in the bow to your form before you bake.  It will heat set to the form and hold it after it’s done like magic.  It’s a new piece of wood after the bake.  You’ll be amazed at the difference from you first bow in performance and dimensions of the limbs and weight of overall bow.  You essentially harden up and shrink the cells of the wood and drive out moisture that rob performance.  I’ve tested white wood bows against yew and Osage and had surprisingly good results.  Make sure you clamp to your form and bake in the sun on on hot sunny days and or bring into the house if you’ve got central ac to get mc down to 10% or les before you bake it.  This will prevent your splits and checks.  I’ve used the heat gun method too with good results working from the grip fade area of each limb out to the tips.  Little more hassle and I feel it’s not as complete of a bake.  Lots of guys on here are white wood warriors and can give lots of info to help you out when you get there.  Best of luck. 

WackEM:
Thanks dav you’ve been a big help. Yeah I have a form that i built and I heat treated this bow with a heat gun which I think helped a lot with holding its form through all the tillering and shooting yesterday. At rough in stage it had about 2 1/2 to 3 inches of backset and shooting it yesterday about 15 times and unstrung it it was about 0” or even and still is this morning. Hopefully it doesn’t continue to cave. I been watching Thad Beckum and Keith on YouTube fire hardening and it looks like the way to go. Any idea on what i could put on the back of the other stave to keep it from checking that would be easy to take off when ready to use?

bjrogg:
That looks like a very nice braced profile on your first Selfbow. Well done.

Look forward to seeing more in the near future.

Bjrogg

WackEM:
Thank you. Yeah I hope to start another as soon as I get this one sealed up. It takes me a long time to get one completed as I work 7 days a week. I have to just work on it a little every day in the evening and I don’t have a shop so if it’s raining or bad weather that’s another day I don’t get to work on it. Plus getting done all the honey do list lol. But I will be trying to get another one started. Thanks again for the compliment.

superdav95:

--- Quote from: WackEM on May 03, 2023, 11:24:37 am ---Thanks dav you’ve been a big help. Yeah I have a form that i built and I heat treated this bow with a heat gun which I think helped a lot with holding its form through all the tillering and shooting yesterday. At rough in stage it had about 2 1/2 to 3 inches of backset and shooting it yesterday about 15 times and unstrung it it was about 0” or even and still is this morning. Hopefully it doesn’t continue to cave. I been watching Thad Beckum and Keith on YouTube fire hardening and it looks like the way to go. Any idea on what i could put on the back of the other stave to keep it from checking that would be easy to take off when ready to use?

--- End quote ---

No problem at all.  Beckham and Shannon are great guys. Very helpful. That is same method I basically use.  I’ve since gone away from brickets that they use and use hard wood coals but same principle really. You want cook to go at least half way through the thickness of limb.  As far as sealing up a stave while waiting for it to dry I use a water based poly coat that is applied by brush.  I do t worry about it when finishing up the bow later and has never been an issue for me. I light sand of back and I’ve been able to stain or dye to my liking.  I know guys on here stick with shellack and hear it’s better against heat for your bake but I e had good luck with water based poly.  Hope that helps ya

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