I don't have a moisture meter, and live near the ocean, with about 60% humidity.
I figured I would play with the hotbox to see what I could get out of a hickory bow (hopefully without over drying it). I decided to go all out and keep the bow in the hotbox fulltime unless I was shooting it.
My rigged "hotbox-Pipe" runs about 105 degrees w/ 23% humidity(which if I calculated right would theoretically get wood to 4.9% MC
)
I only had the total physical bow weight as my reference point and am wondering if my results mean anything to those with more wisdom?
before the hotbox I initially weighed the 68in NTN bow(w/leather grip,no string) at 1lb 11.2 ounces pulling around 52@25.
After several weeks it just barely lost an ounce. It is now 1lb 10.2 ounces and only increased weight to 54@25.
I know there is much more to this, but I am wondering if I basically got it about as far as it will go. I don't know if that is a lot of weight loss or not, and since it took so long to lose that last ounce does it mean it is already stabilized pretty low??
I know this has many variable and no real answer, but hopefully someone has a better idea of what this might mean..
thanks