Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: sleek on January 04, 2015, 01:27:19 am
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I was speaking with a guy today at a gunshow who was telling me about a 25 year old osage stave he has. It came from a friend of his who 25 years ago burried it in a pond with many other staves. A year and a half ago it was recovered and gifted to him. According to him his friend was old school Cherokee.
This isnt the first time I have heard of water submerged ( in this case mud burried when the pond was very low ) staves being left to cure. Now I reckon being above water for 1.5 years its dry by now. But Im of the opinion if it had just been left in the attic for 25 years it would have been even better off.
Why do folks do this and who else has heard of it? By the way he said its a very wide stave and if I split it and help him along I could have half.
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It removes sap or so we are told!
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Removes sap? As in sap wood or actual sap? Why would we care about sap in the wood? Especially if its dry, it doesnt weigh anything... and ir could add a glue like substance to the wood helping it. Im confused.
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Al Herrin describes the process in "Cherokee Bows and Arrows".
Jawge
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Looks like im off to the library on monday then. If indeed there is enought stave there then be split in half, I will for sure be making a cherokee bow keeping in spirit with everything. Fitting considering my great x3 grandmother was full blood..
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isn't the stuff in sap what makes heartwood from sapwood?
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I have read Al Herrins book as well. I know that some traditions have in their origin a practical reason, others because it was done this way and this is the way you should do it. I'm not sure which catagory this falls into, but I'm going to offer a few thoughts on the matter. Be advised they are only questions or even opinions and not based on anything scientific.
There is the possibility that this may have been a means of allowing the internal moisture content to release without having to worry about checking etc... I know that there must have become an equalization between the inside and outside MC of the staves cured this way. I am sure as well that it may have contributed to slowing the deteriation of the wood ( ala old growth timber from the bottom of the great lakes making violins with richer resonance) . Now I'm sure the native american bowyers would not have thought in terms of MC, but they may have observed the checking process and realized that bows made from staves that were taken from being submerged were less likely to check and then therefore they sought to artificially induce this.
It also might have begun in response to the need to cure staves over time and not have someone find them and run off with them, so storing them in a pond would be a good stash place and would'nt hurt the wood. We know that exposure to air/oxygen will start the deterioration of the wood and so in an oxygenless environment the cell structure solidification in the curing process may have had a different chemical effect than if it were in the attic etc.
Anyone else care to chime in? Danny
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i think it was to prevent checking,, and also it seems to have preserved them well,, Natives didnt have attics at that time,, so this was probably a great storage solution,,also it would keep the temp from ever changing quickly ,, and would also keep the moisture content constant,,, never changing at all,, :)
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I have read Al Herrins book as well. I know that some traditions have in their origin a practical reason, others because it was done this way and this is the way you should do it. I'm not sure which catagory this falls into, but I'm going to offer a few thoughts on the matter. Be advised they are only questions or even opinions and not based on anything scientific.
There is the possibility that this may have been a means of allowing the internal moisture content to release without having to worry about checking etc... I know that there must have become an equalization between the inside and outside MC of the staves cured this way. I am sure as well that it may have contributed to slowing the deteriation of the wood ( ala old growth timber from the bottom of the great lakes making violins with richer resonance) . Now I'm sure the native american bowyers would not have thought in terms of MC, but they may have observed the checking process and realized that bows made from staves that were taken from being submerged were less likely to check and then therefore they sought to artificially induce this.
It also might have begun in response to the need to cure staves over time and not have someone find them and run off with them, so storing them in a pond would be a good stash place and would'nt hurt the wood. We know that exposure to air/oxygen will start the deterioration of the wood and so in an oxygenless environment the cell structure solidification in the curing process may have had a different chemical effect than if it were in the attic etc.
Anyone else care to chime in? Danny
I agree with what you wrote.....Alot of times to inner wood is dryer than the outer near the cambium layer, a month is plenty though in my opinion. Maybe Badger, or someone in plum country can do a test....as it is real prone to checking.
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One thing for sure: No borer damage under water.
Another, maybe the sapwood would rot off leaving the heartwood? That would be cool.
Jim Davis
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Well, when I get ahold of it I will try and get a split off it to send whoever can test it.
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I am of the "no wood borers" camp as well. I am sure this practice originated long before sealants for grains and pesticides and was the only safe way to keep staves out of harms way until you could make a bow from one.
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I've read an article in PA about submerging them in Saltwater and Buffalo urine.
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You get the urine, I'll get the water!!! :laugh:
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collecting buffalo urine seems a bit hazardous :) I like to keep my bow making on the safe side :)
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There was a discussion a year or two ago about drying vs. curing a stave-- and I don't care to re-open that can of worms. Robert Hardy in his book 'The longbow: A Social and Military History' noted that it was common practice in the Middle Ages to season yew for a couple years in a running stream. I don't remember the rationale he provided. It would tend to discourage further insect/borer damage, and keep the wood from drying out to quickly while submerged. However I think a person would still have to treat a submerged stave with a little bit more care than one which had been air dried for several years.
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You know what? I just remembered I have a stave of submerged wood. A buddy of mine pulled it out while fishing. No clue on the wood type. It was so old though it was sunk. I will post a pic in a few days and build a bow of it. Probably gonna go low weight ish on it and wide as I can just to see if it will work.
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I love this kind of discusion. Anyone else?
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On p. 21 of TBB IV, it is explained that decay is mainly caused by fungi, not bacteria, and the wood is protected if over 30% MC. Decay fungi is most likely to grow between 20% and 30% MC. So yeah, storing wood underwater will keep it from decaying.
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Would the water not breakdown the wood fibers over the years though?
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No. There has been a thriving market in harvesting trees that have been underwater for 100 years or so. The demand is that the trees were not second growth like most of the forest of today. They actually have hydraulic chainsaws for underwater work.
Don't for get, Osage can be a fence post for 100 years and still be suitable for bow making. And wood rots many times faster at the ground surface than buried in soil or underwater.
Jim Davis
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Interesting discussion:-).
Im sure natives could control checking and drying just fine (even without an attic;-). I also dont buy the "prevent rot" explanation (yet), since we have allready established that osage can survive for decades as fence posts and still make perfectly good bows. As for seasoning I have yet to see any tangible proof, that seasoned staves make better bows (better as in, worth the effort of seasoning).
This pretty much leaves storage. Im thinking water/mud storage would only make sense for a people that migrates. Unprocessed bow staves would be hell to travel with for people with a nomadic lifestyle, but can be stored mores easily than in a bog, if the settlement was permanent.
But I admit that, that is really just pushing the problem ahead....submerged staves will still have to be dried, and it will take as long when retrived from water, as it would when the wood was green.
Alternativly the "water curing" does something to the wood that eases the work of turning it into a bow. I dont think partial rot (rot of the sapwood only) is it....submerged wood last forever almost. Bug prevention is a possibility....but dont you just push the problem ahead?....I mean, the staves still have to be dried and thus the bug issue returns.
Just my thoughts on the subject;-)
Cheers
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Has anyone ever seen a mushroom growing on osage? I have not, moss yes, no fungi. I know where there are hedgerows bulldozed 30 years ago of downed osage, still intact, no fungi... Sorry to get off topic.. anyone?
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Don't think I've ever seen any mushrooms growing on it. I have seen some mold/mildew growing on the sapwood only of some staves stored in a damp moldy place.
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I have seen moldy sapwood. Have a piece right now.
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Just a wild guess: Maybe submerging osage keeps the heartwood in a green state and hence easier to rough out a bow with the stone tools used by Cherokee bowyers. Maybe the sap wood would get alot softer than the heart wood for easier stripping. Besides, after cutting down a osage tree or even a limb with stone tools, the Cherokee likely didn't want to fool with the osage again for a long time :)
c.d.
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just keeping the sap wood soft and keeping the bugs out or killing the ones there would be enough :)
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I've posted on here before that my grandfather (...a fellow of some native american heritage in Appalachia) used to supplement his income by building high strength Hickory handles for axes, picks, and shovels. His trick was to bury the pre-shaped and roughed out handles in the pig sloughs on his hog farm. They'd stay in that soupy mess for a year or two, sometimes longer, then he'd move the hogs to a new pen and harvest the handles out of the old one. Not sure if it's related - but it didn't seem to be too far off topic. >:D :laugh: :o
OneBow
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Storage of staves makes some sense to me as well. In the upper and central plains states, tribes used to store their grinding stones close to common camp sites rather than carry around 30-100 lb rocks. They would tote them out from the campsite and flip 'em over upside down. It would look just like any other rock to another tribe passing thru. When you passed thru this area again the next year, or several years later, just go find it again. But if an enemy tribe found it, they would move it or break it if possible. While it sounds like a small thing, those stones took generations to wear in until they worked well. Losing one was like losing the work of your mother, her mother, and her grandmother.
Well, store your staves in a local pond and they won't end up like one of our member's osage stash getting used in a teenager's bonfire!
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I think of him every so often... hope he worked those teenagers to the bone and got some good osage back from it. Twice what he lost.
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safe storage seems like a reasonable explanation, but then there is mention of old world yew bowyers storing bow staves in creeks. Which seems to me more about curing the wood than safe storage.
From the discussion on seasoning wood, I remember there being two types of moisture in wood, free and bound. The way i remember it, free moisture in the wood is easily lost, but bound moisture is lost very slowly over time. I wonder if submerging the wood in water somehow increases the rate of loss of this chemically bound water.
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I would not say that some of the water is " chemically bound" so much.
I was taught to imagine the difference between free and bound as....... free being what you can squeeze out of a sponge, and bound as the dampness which remains, but will dry out after a while.
Could long term underwater storage affect the wood or some of its components, changing the way a wood takes up and releases water (moisture) in the future.
Can anyone cite any advantages to using wet stored wood? proverbial or experienced? Perhaps the bow made from it performed better somehow?
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My father used to build engines for race cars in the 50's and 60's , they would bore out the engine blocks and hone them , they would find a spring fed creek and sink the block in the creek for a week or two then pull it out and lightly hone it one more time before building the engine , he claimed that some minerals in the water would seep into the pores in the castiron and make the metal harder making the engines last longer .
Maybe some of this same process is happening to the wood , sunken wood does feel heavier after it dries than a stave that has sat in a barn for a couple years .
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You have to wonder how he decided to do that the first time? Probably some corn involved ;D
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Hard to say , dad grew up working on engines and who knows which old timer passed this knowlage to him .
An uncle in law of dads used to build bows and fly rods in the late 40's , dad says that his uncle would season some of his bow wood in a spring for a few months before working on it , dad said he would tiller his bows , he would clamp the bow to a bench and them tie a weight to one limb and scrape the belly with a peace of glass until the weight touched the floor the do the same procces to the other limb , dad never saw him deer hunt ( back then There weren't very many deer around ) but did see him take squirrels with the bows , dad said he thinks most of the bows were cedar , the fly rods were dogwood that he would cut and hang in a barn wit a rock tied to one end so they would dry straight .
Maybe seing those bow staves sunk in a spring led to the engine blocks soaking in a creek .
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Not all creeks are equal. Water quality will very with mineral composition by location. If it did work, maybe it only worked in areas with certain minerals in the water. This fact being unknown to others the idea spread. We know minerals will soak in. Look at petrified wood for example. I have held sunken cedar before and lemme tell ya, its heavy. I have a bit of wood im going to get tomorrow morning that came from a lake bottom. Its big enough for a bow. Been down there a long time. Large rings and unknown species, could be interesting.
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First time I've heard the words free and bound, but makes sense to me.
very similar to dry and seasoned, and explains why some bows pick up # over time even though the staves
were dry to start
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some wood may hold more water weight than there is wood by weight. Mostly "free" and this water can be lost very rapidly when cut. Once wood get down to about 30% water content, the cells themselves start to dry and shrink, (think of a cellulose sponge that has been wrung dry. I still has full shape but when it completely dries, it will shrink up.) drying wood at this point must be controlled to prevent damage. A good resource on the properties of wood is "Understanding Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley
Seasoned can be a different term that might create discussions of it's own.
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I'm not sure why, but have heard some good theories here. I'm from Ada, Oklahoma. When I was a boy (63 now) it was the accepted way to treat green Bois d' Arc. We all just accepted that as the best way. Drill a hole in each end, tie a rock on one end a rope on the other and let it sit for at least six months.
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Hey! A fellow Okie! Im in bartlesville Oklahoma. Next weekend ill be in McAllister. You ever that way?
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Just now saw your question, Sleek. At the time I read this thread and put my 2c in, I didn't know who you were. If I were to cut Osage, I would sink it just because the previous generations of Indians (Chickasaw) I know around Ada said to do it. I live on a quarter section, but my father-in-law hated Osage trees. There isn't one on this whole property. I have considered planting them. I even put a bunch of horseapples in a 5gal bucket to overwinter for planting in the spring last year.
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Don't think I've ever seen any mushrooms growing on it. I have seen some mold/mildew growing on the sapwood only of some staves stored in a damp moldy place.
Just for fun. If you look at Mold under a microscope, many species look like tiny mushrooms. They are related, of course.
Years ago there was an article in the old Primitive Bowhunter Mag, (I think), about curing staves in salt water, too. It seemed to harden or consolidate wood, but then attract moisture later, and everybody talked about that for a few weeks on forums.
I think urine could have a huge anti-fungal benefit. I can't see how water, just water, would actuually improve the wood, unless long times or high mineral content were present. A peat bog would preserve the heck out of a stave,pickling it in tannic acid.
But so far I see the logic behind several points made here. A submerged stave would be far less prone to decay or even oxidative breakdown than one left in the woods. Very wet wood could be much easier to rough shape with stone tools. Checking could be minimized. Nomadic people could store lots of good staves this way and protect them from theft, rot, bugs, animals, etc.. (Imagine finding a PERFECT stave, but already having a really nice bow. You can either remember where the living tree stands, and hope nobody else takes it, nothing happens to it, etc, or cut it down and bury it in the marsh.)
And, so far there doesn't seem to me to be any reasons this is a BAD idea.
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Absolutely and completely off-topic?
Using submarines and divers, there are a few salvage companies bringing up old-growth logs that sunk in the great lakes.
These logs approach the highest dollar value ever for board making . The super cold, deep (fresh water) preserves the wood and stops any deteriation.
Somewhere on this site mentioned some old farmer sunk his hickory tool handles into the pig manure. Same idea as ammonia aging.
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If he lets you have some of the wood, be sure to post pics !! 8)
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Somewhere on this site mentioned some old farmer sunk his hickory tool handles into the pig manure.
I already know how to make sh***y bows.
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Now I've soaked ptarmigan breasts in a salt-water brine, but I doubt that leaching out the 'gamey flavor' is important for bow wood!