Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: HoBow on September 21, 2009, 03:03:16 pm
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I have read extensively on the internet (this site among others) and have gotten different answers from people that appeared to know what they were talking about. I have a stave that I dried in an old van for a 2 months and the moisture content is about 9%. Does this mean the wood is seasoned or just dried. Is there a difference? If there is a difference, is there a long term quality difference in the final bow from a dried stave versus a well seasoned (3+ years) stave. I am more interested in the long term quality difference than just knowing if it will make a good bow. Thanks!
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There is a big difference between seasoned and dry. Dry only relates to the M/C of the wood but the resins, et al in well seasoned wood has solidified and makes the wood more stable with relation to stresses and M/C and more resilient.
I built a 60" osage static recurve that bends through the handle with a clean piece of osage that had been cut a month or 2 before. I had taken the wood down to bow size and put it in my hot box for a while. The wood was dry and the completed bow was zippy like I expected but the lower limb belly fretted. I'm convinced it was the lack of curing that caused the frets(along with my tillering! ;D ) I have since built 2 other bows with the same wood and even though they were only a few months older they fared better.
I think for osage and similar woods at least a year and better yet 3 to 10 years. To an extent, if stored properly, the longer the better.
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I have had bows pick up a few pounds of weight over a couple years time. Seasoned wood is certainly best if you have it, but quick-dried wood can make a perfectly good bow, too.
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Thanks Pat, I've read that about the resins How did the other two bows perform and last a year or two down the road?
Hillbilly- How do you define quick dried wood because you can get the moisture content down below 10% in this south alabama heat pretty quick....
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I've not noticed any difference between "dry" and "seasoned" wood. But then I mostly work with white woods.
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I have to side with Gordon on this one. I have found no differences in the two. (all things being equal)The main ingredient for a good bow is a dry stave, wether seasoned or not.
Most people now a days heat treat everything anyhow,so even a seasoned piece of wood will go through some changes?
As Hillbilly stated I to have had some bows gain weight.I have always attributed that to the weather,dry air/wet air. Cold clear winter days always show an increase in cast. (JMO) ;D
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Heat tempering does the same thing as seasoning. Shrinks the wood fibers down. Problem with Osage, you can't get on the wood as quick as with white woods. Arrow-making, where you can't really "toast" the wood, is where you'll really notice the difference between just dried and seasoning. Performance wise that is. ART
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Jeff, I was talking about roughing out a stave from a freshly-cut tree, and drying it in a hotbox or car or over a heat/AC vent-going from tree to bow in a few weeks or less. I've made some bows like that which shot just fine. I'm like Art, I think it's easier to quick-dry hickory or other whitewoods than it is osage or locust.
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Dry means dry, it's not too complicated. As long as that stave isn't too thick, it should be uniformly dry. Otherwise it might be still much more humid in the centre.
The traditional bowyer's bible series goes in detail about wood drying times and methods. It also spends quite a bit of time trying to demystify the concept of seasoned wood.
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I don't know... I think a good seasoned stave makes a better bow, especially yew. I'm talkin' about a stave that has been sitting for a minimum of a year. Maybe it's just my imagination, but a seasoned stave has always made a better bow for me than others I have force dried in the hot box. Less set, less chrysalling.
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Like others have said most white wood I haven't seen much difference but Osage ,I think
is better seasoned for at least a year and that if they are roughed into close to bow diminution's.If in a log 2 or 3 years I think is better,now that's not saying you can't make a good bow from
fresherr wood but I do believe it is better seasoned. :)
Pappy
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Few years ago I have made 4 longbows from yew sesoned 21 years - for this time 3 are broken, I have made about 50 yew longbows from " fresh " wood 1 -3 years sesoned and dry to 8 % in stave - only 2 on 50 are broken for this time. So I think even in yew to long could be not good. And all woods after sesoned should be dry in staves. Air dry wood have over 10 % humidity . Its my opinion.
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Yep, wood tends to harden as it ages or seasons. It definitely makes for a better more resilient piece of wood.
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i was given an hhb bow tha was made from a stave that was a little less than a year old
the guy that made the,had used for the first couple of years of its life.
he then started making those "fg" recurve bows,and placed this one in his garage rafters.
it remaine ther for about 5 yrs,and was the given to me.
when he gave it to me,he stated that he had tillered it to about 55lbs,that thing was pulling over 70 and still is
i really need to lighten that bugger up some
so i would say seasoned is better than dry.it takes longer to season wood,but i would be willing to bet
that a bow made from a well seasones stave wouldnt pick up that kinda weight after sitting for e few years
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Ask professional musical instrument makers or those that make gun stocks what kind of wood they would rather use. They'll pick seasoned wood over kiln dried wood everytime
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Here is an interesting piece I lifted from an article about drying wood for woodworking purposes. I'm still not convinced that letting a stave sit beyond the time necessary to properly dry imparts any special qualities to the wood.
Wood changes its size when its moisture content changes. The size change is different along each of the planes of wood growth - radial (R at right), tangential (T) and lengthwise (X). So, it's important that woodworkers know when the moisture content of their wood has reached equilibrium with the workshop, so that its dimensions have settled down.
What is the moisture content (MC) of wood compared to its dry weight? Typically 60% for green hardwoods, up to double that for softwoods. The moisture is in two forms - chemically bound and free. The first aim of seasoning lumber is to degrade the chemical bonds to water, so that all that remains is free to move. This happens faster at higher temperatures, which is why kiln drying saves so much time. However, too-high kiln temperatures degrade wood, and most kiln drying is done as quickly as possible to produce cheap construction grade softwood. That's why kiln drying has a bad name among instrument makers.
Skilled kiln drying can actually produce better wood than air drying. When wood is air dried, the outside dries faster than the inside, and this results in residual stresses in the wood. If the kiln humidity is controlled to match that of the wood throughout the process, and the high temperature is used just to speed up the rate at which the chemical bonds are degraded and moisture equilibrium is reached, residual stresses can be significantly reduced below those of air dried wood. But, there is no way to know, just looking at a piece of wood.
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It looks to me like there is a fine line between seasoned and degraded. My thoughts on the subject, it's kinda like a fine wine, aged/seasoned. I ain't no judge of fine wine and I dang sure haven't seen the benefit of seasoned wood, outside of the fact folks think they can charge more, for storage I guess. >:D
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I haven't noticed a difference as a bowyer. And I'm not sure we are as concerned with lumber maintaining it's dimensional shape as furniture makers and such. But it would be hard to argue wood doesn't change over time. Anybody who has fooled with decades old furniture or timbers could testify. I've seen oak boards you have to drill first to put a nail in. If you think about that "bound" moisture, and heat breaking those chemical bonds in the text Gordon quotes, I imagine those resins and such could behave differently if allowed to reduce and form over a longer period. Kinda like the grain structure of carbon steel, annealed versus hardened.
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I suspose many bowyers may not be concerned with the demensional shape of the wood. But if you work with reaction wood (such as vine maple), that is an important consideration. The other benefit of drying, of course, is that wood is strongest, i.e. resistent to bending, when it is dry. The "bound" water that the author refers to is the water that is physically bound within the walls of the wood cells as opposed to the "free" water that exists in the cell cavities. Once this water is removed, I can see no particular benefit to letting the wood sit around and further "season".