Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Justin.schmidt23 on August 13, 2016, 11:41:04 am
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So I heard a quite from a bowyer not too long ago that said " seasoning is a myth. Dry Is dry" I've also seen quite a few people say get the wood to floor tiller then let it dry for however long. What's your opinion? I'm not very patient especially when it comes to waiting for wood to dry. So I have 2 staves down about 3/4 of an inch thickness and rough bow shapes. How long until I can Finnish them up? At this rate I'm gonna have 15 staves and no trees in my back yard! Lol what is your opinion?
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making good wood bows is all about patience, so that's something you will have to work on!
Buy a kitchen scale. The wood has no moisture when it stops losing weight for a week or more.
Keep cutting and roughing out blanks, eventually you'll have more dry wood than time
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Speaking only for Osage....Baker was mistaken in my opinion. I have first hand seen the difference between just dry Osage (moisture content) and seasoned, and there is definitely a big change. White woods I cant speak to.
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Justin if you want to see posts on the dry versus seasoned debate, just do a search. It comes up a few times a year. Of course 99% of guys would pick a seasoned stave over a dry one, in any species, but for you, a guy that just wants to get bending, make sure is at least DRY
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I'm not about to try and start a dry vs season debate I might be new but not THAT new ;D I can let a few pieces season np. And there's really no problem for me being patient while working (now that I know power tools are a no go aND eddie hooked me up with a draw knife.) But I don't work and this is my only hobby right now. So waiting a year to do a hobby is no bueno right now. Just trying to get a rough estimate of how long I can wait until I can start tillering some
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At that size, just let them reach equilibrium weight wise, with the environment and then carry on.
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At that size, just let them reach equilibrium weight wise, with the environment and then carry on.
How do I hope about that?
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You only have to be patient for three or four months if that. Your first bow will be a little sub standard and take a bit more set than you want due to dampness but the rest will be dry by the time you get to them. Fill that time tracking down and hoarding bow wood. I started this two years ago. I really enjoy crashing about in the bush so I found collecting wood to be fun. I built up a good stash and just the the other day I picked up a stave that was two years old. Be sure to label your staves with the date and species.
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Weigh them. Once they quit losing weight, your there. You can use a scale or a counter balance weight. Just something sensitive enough to indicate little changes.
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At that size, just let them reach equilibrium weight wise, with the environment and then carry on.
How do I hope about that?
Read my first reply. But a kitchen scale
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Weigh them. Once they quit losing weight, your there. You can use a scale or a counter balance weight. Just something sensitive enough to indicate little changes.
This is what I was gonna suggest.
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Im glad the kitchen scale was sugested to me a 1 in thick ruffed out hickory stave that I had inside since Feb. that I thought should be good to go is still losing weight , I could have sped it up by making it thinner but wasent sure which way I was going with it .
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I'm gonna look into getting a kitchen scale sounds like a pretty ingenious idea. My question is. How did the native Americans know when the wood was seasoned. This is a hobby for us but that is how they fed their families and protected their home.
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With woods like osage, black locust and mulberry seasoned is the way to go. You can build a bow with these woods just dry but you will get better performance, more stability and less set with seasoned wood. I don't make many whitewood bows but I think you can get by with dry wood using whitewoods. Get your wood down to floor tiller stage and it will dry quicker. Keep it in your house with A/C and it will dry more and stay dry.
I don't use a moisture meter or weigh my staves but I've collected wood for twenty years or so so I always have seasoned wood. I think that is the way to be sure your wood is ready to work, by collecting wood for later use instead on finding one stave to work on. If you are cutting one stave you can cut 4 or 5 with just a little more work. I can tell by the sound of the tools as I work the wood and by the feel, how does the wood recover when bent. If the wood feels sluggish when you bend it it probably hasn't dried or been seasoned enough. And, just because a piece of wood has seasoned for years doesn't mean it is dry enough to work. The moisture in your wood goes up and down with the R/H in your area. That's why I do most on my bow building in the winter, the R/H is generally dryer then.
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With woods like osage, black locust and mulberry seasoned is the way to go. You can build a bow with these woods just dry but you will get better performance, more stability and less set with seasoned wood. I don't make many whitewood bows but I think you can get by with dry wood using whitewoods. Get your wood down to floor tiller stage and it will dry quicker. Keep it in your house with A/C and it will dry more and stay dry.
I don't use a moisture meter or weigh my staves but I've collected wood for twenty years or so so I always have seasoned wood. I think that is the way to be sure your wood is ready to work, by collecting wood for later use instead on finding one stave to work on. If you are cutting one stave you can cut 4 or 5 with just a little more work. I can tell by the sound of the tools as I work the wood and by the feel, how does the wood recover when bent. If the wood feels sluggish when you bend it it probably hasn't dried or been seasoned enough. And, just because a piece of wood has seasoned for years doesn't mean it is dry enough to work. The moisture in your wood goes up and down with the R/H in your area. That's why I do most on my bow building in the winter, the R/H is generally dryer then.
Makes alot of sense pat. I've cut 2 trees and had about 9 staves out of the bunch. So I've basically been practicing my craft. Unfortunately all I have is laurel oak, live oak (which has a pretty good reputition) hackberry, camphor, and a but load of unique usable pine. I'm in Florida so hickory is kinda useless do to the extremely high humidity and it's tendencies to set. Besides I can't really find any. Oh and I think I have 2 trees of Indian rosewood but haven't confirmed that yet.
Anyway I don't mind hacking down a tree with my hatchet then splitting it. I just don't really have a year or more to just wait so I can get my hands dirty. And I can't see myself spending 60 bucks to mess up a stave lol
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Justin, I consider all the wood you mentioned as whitewoods so they should dry relatively quickly. Taking your staves down to floor tiller stage and keeping them in your house with A/C will help to eliminate moisture in the wood. A hot car with the windows slightly open for air circulation works too but inside your house will be dryer. You can probably get the M/C down enough in a month or 2 under the right conditions. Start a bow. If you notice it taking set, put it aside and start another. Eventually you will have more ready bow wood than you know but until then just work a little at a time and don't over stress the wood. If set begins you know you are over stressing. If not over done, that set early in the drying process, can be reversible with minimal damage.
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Ok I'll take them in the house. They're sitting on a top shelf in my garage right now so I'll bring them In. Is 3/4in decent thickness or should I bring is down. To 1/2?
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Start floor tillering at 3/4" and work them down with a rasp and scraper.
Your garage is the same R/H as outside unless you have a controlled environment in it. There is less R/H inside the house and having your staves in that lower R/H will bring down the M/C of the stave.
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Awesome. Thanks pat. Imma go Google r/h and m/h now lol
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r/h = relative humidity m/c=moisture content.
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Now it all makes sense thanks again
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Just keep on working on the staves without bending them more than several inches. Do not put nocks on them so that you are not tempted to string them. That way you can work on bows while you are waiting for them to dry. I have dozens of staves in that stage. I enjoy working on them more than actually tillering them into shootable bows. I already have dozens of those. Enjoy each and every stages. Dreaming about the final stage is more enjoyable than actual reality of average bows. Good luck.
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Dry vs seasoned ...there's no way to actually scientifically decide it.
At this point, after many years of bow making, most of my wood is seasoned. LOL.
Dry will work just fine. Get it dry and don't worry about it, Justin. :)
Good advice above.
Jawge
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Like I said before, I don't live that far from you. Make a run down here and I'm sure I can find a cured piece of wood. I'm looking at a Winged Elm that was cut in 2004, now. Let the other ones sit for awhile. And, I spotted the devastation you are reaking on Central Fl. on Google Earth yesterday. :o :'( ;)
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Like I said before, I don't live that far from you. Make a run down here and I'm sure I can find a cured piece of wood. I'm looking at a Winged Elm that was cut in 2004, now. Let the other ones sit for awhile. And, I spotted the devastation you are reaking on Central Fl. on Google Earth yesterday. :o :'( ;)
I'll make a run down that way after you get back from your trip. I just don't have the gas to get down there right now. This hackberry sure is harder than the laurel oak stave I'm messing with now :)
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Personally I do keep humidity meters in the house.No moisture meter though.Just a scale too.Here's a graph to go by.
(http://i920.photobucket.com/albums/ad41/Beadman1/DSCN1035_zpsytb9hov5.jpeg) (http://s920.photobucket.com/user/Beadman1/media/DSCN1035_zpsytb9hov5.jpeg.html)
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Well, don't worry about trying the camphor! It doesn't make a bow. Makes awesome smelling furniture though. I think the oak will have issues with set at well if it doesn't season thoroughly in the wet climate. I imported some white oak to Taiwan where I live and noticed it took considerable set even though the wood was well seasoned. Could be design failure, but it really seems like moisture to me. Hackberry might be a better choice, or at least heat treat the belly of the oak. You've probably got crape myrtle, guava, mulberry, podacarpus, orange jessamine, cassaurina and plenty of fruit trees lurking all over the place around there. Just learn to ID them. New bowers get stuck on the traditional bow woods without realising that there has been a lot of experimentation with other promising wood. They will never be osage, but you will be plenty satisfied with them. Fun to learn about as well.
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Well, don't worry about trying the camphor! It doesn't make a bow. Makes awesome smelling furniture though. I think the oak will have issues with set at well if it doesn't season thoroughly in the wet climate. I imported some white oak to Taiwan where I live and noticed it took considerable set even though the wood was well seasoned. Could be design failure, but it really seems like moisture to me. Hackberry might be a better choice, or at least heat treat the belly of the oak. You've probably got crape myrtle, guava, mulberry, podacarpus, orange jessamine, cassaurina and plenty of fruit trees lurking all over the place around there. Just learn to ID them. New bowers get stuck on the traditional bow woods without realising that there has been a lot of experimentation with other promising wood. They will never be osage, but you will be plenty satisfied with them. Fun to learn about as well.
Well actually have quite a few fruit trees. Mainly black cherry.
Ivery actually heard that pretty much any fruit tree will make a good bow. Does anyone know why that is? Just curious
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Black Cherry is gorgeous wood...and I always felt it would look really good in a self bow. Tim baker talked a bunch about it in a positive way, and the technical data on it looks really good. Having said all that, I've never been able to get a bow from it after repeated attempts. Sap pockets killed one during the early tiller stages, another was a glue up with a hickory baking that blew shrapnel into my ceiling that may still be there. My backing strip was less than perfect so there's that. Another one just popped about midlimb for no reason I could see at all. One of my staves I had drying checked clean thru from back to belly, you could have lost your car keys in the crack. I have seen a few on here, so it can be done. Just be prepared for the temperamental stuff to give you fits.
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Black Cherry is gorgeous wood...and I always felt it would look really good in a self bow. Tim baker talked a bunch about it in a positive way, and the technical data on it looks really good. Having said all that, I've never been able to get a bow from it after repeated attempts. Sap pockets killed one during the early tiller stages, another was a glue up with a hickory baking that blew shrapnel into my ceiling that may still be there. My backing strip was less than perfect so there's that. Another one just popped about midlimb for no reason I could see at all. One of my staves I had drying checked clean thru from back to belly, you could have lost your car keys in the crack. I have seen a few on here, so it can be done. Just be prepared for the temperamental stuff to give you fits.
Well definitely keep that in mind! So far this laurel oak I have is really easy to wok compared to hackberry which is tough as nails!
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Every tree Limbit mentioned we have and all are better then oak. Cassarina, "Austailian Pine" down here is some bad a$$ wood with interlocking grain from Hell. I've never seen a woog that will fold over when it breaks and an hour later straighten back to where it was before.
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That's what I've been hearing but have yet to see any around here. I might pack up the chainsaw and "explore" ocala national Forrest:)
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Not Ocala, go to the coast near the beaches. They were brought in a long time ago for wind breaks. And you better invest in a Band saw with good blades or good wedges. Get in touch with Parnel on this site he has access to some.
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Alright I'll definitely check it out. They're an invasive species here so I'm sure I'll be able to get some
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Yes, cassaurina is sometimes called by many names including Australian Pine or Beach Pine...and it always grows right on the edge of the beach where the beach meets the forest. Although the tree can be pretty gnarly, if you find an older one with a crotch mid-way up it, you should be able to find perfectly straight and twig-free limbs growing vertically out of it. That is always the way I collect it now in Taiwan. The tree is too dense to lug around off the beach after cutting without a group of friends, so limbs are sometimes preferable. The wood does split insanely easily if you want to stave out a larger trunk then and there. The wood is 100% tension safe within normal designs, but it may have some small compression issues. Seal it up ASAP and keep it in a cool area to season or it will check like crazy. You can find jessamine wood on hills with slopes facing the rising sun. You will smell it long before you see it and it often has small white flowers or small citrus-like fruit growing on it. Hell of a good bow wood. Podacarpus is often called "japanese yew" and is a highly usable wood that is easily identifiable. Guava is everywhere. Most people prefer "strawberry guava" to yellow guava as a bow wood. Post pics if you score anything.
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Thanks for the tips. I'm gonna write all this down so I don't forget. I have yet to see any guava trees around me. Granted it's not in my little book so who knows. I have some strange trees that the bark is a reddish brown. Pretty sure eddie said it was camphor. Which is a no go
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You have pictures of the bark? Reddish brown doesn't sound like camphor to me. At least not all the camphor I've seen. Camphor has greyish pleated bark similar to a cottonwood tree and has glossy leaves that are highly fragrant when crushed.Send some pics of it my way if you could!
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Yea, if it's reddish brown it's not Camphor. There's Guava down here where I'm at. A lot of it growing on the side of the roadway.
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Crunch the leaves. Camphor smells like....camphor!
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I'll snap some pics today. I can't reach the leaves because they're so high up. Damn vines. But it's orangish red color bark.
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Ok so here's some pics of the orangish color tree
(https://s4.postimg.org/hbm1ug4e1/20160815_111148.jpg) (https://postimg.org/image/hbm1ug4e1/)
(https://s4.postimg.org/7f6kbquw9/20160815_111135.jpg) (https://postimg.org/image/7f6kbquw9/)
(https://s3.postimg.org/6npupm85r/20160815_111106.jpg) (https://postimg.org/image/6npupm85r/)
Then there is this guy which is also confusing me
(https://s3.postimg.org/8xucwtndb/20160815_110328.jpg) (https://postimg.org/image/8xucwtndb/)
Any help would be amazing gents!
(https://s3.postimg.org/wldvquq5r/20160815_110316.jpg) (https://postimg.org/image/wldvquq5r/)
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That first one is camphor. The second one is a question to me. Again, I am not from Florida, so maybe one of the other guys can ID it.
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Man I hope not. Eddie said maybe hickory
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The last picture of leaves is Pignut Hickory. The first one looks like Camphor.
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The last picture of leaves is the tree just above it
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Take better pictures. ;)
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Haha easier said than done when the leaves are 10ft above my head
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Pignut would be a good score!
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Here is the wiki for orange jessamine. Try hunting it down whenever you find yourself out and about. It is worth the effort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murraya_paniculata
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Yeah some pignut would be awesome. So far I'm pretty happy with hackberry. Granted I haven't finished a bow yet lol but it seems pretty tough.
I'll look into the orange jessamine. I'm on the hunt for HHB and persimmon. Just to be different :)
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Well no luck. I just scouted everywhere in my back yard and all I have is laurel oak, pine, and hackberry