Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: Gunnar on August 20, 2017, 05:26:42 pm
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5 years ago I came across a standing dead yew tree that had around 70 growth rings per inch and thought I would use it someday once I had more time on my hands. 3 years later I started my project, following the yew hunting bow build-a-long that Weylin posted. Everything was going really well until I started the steaming for the recurve. The initial process went well, as you can see from the pictures, but over time I just got way out of wack and it's been sitting in my garage for the past two years collecting dust. The bottom limb (the one without much recurve) seems much weaker than the top and the recurve didn't set for some reason. I have never had a whole lot of success with recurves, so I should not have tried it with such a nice billet, but I would still like to fix it if possible. Is there anyway to salvage this? Would attempting to steam it again work. Any tips or advice would be much appreciated. Thank you
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You probably can steam it straight or use dry heat. either way some sort of form will be useful.
The recurve likely didn't 'set' because it wasn't hot enough.
Another tip is to never cut out a handle/reduce width there until the bow is at full brace height and you can see where the string is lying. Then shape the handle. If the strinmg is off to one side a little you can simply shape the handle to suit and forget the heat straightening.
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I've had problems in the past with steam bends repeatedly creeping back. Eventually I found that a really good long dose of dry heat taken to the point of heat treating the wood works.
Mind, that is rather an extreme example you have there! :o
Del
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Thanks for the advice. I'll try it out and hopefully get better results than the first time.
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Never worked with yew but if it were mine I'd just steam the handle and bend til the tips like back up.
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Glad you're benefiting from my build a long. I would do exactly what these gentlemen are saying and use dry heat to help set the recurves you made with the steam. Yew especially seems to need this extra dry heat. Don't give up on it. Yew can be stubborn with recurves, you just have to be more stubborn. It wont hurt it to steam it or heat it more than once.