Heat treating after tillering

[Lee Lobbestael]

Do you guys find any benefit to heat treating the belly of a bow after it has already been tillered? The Osage bow in working on took more set than I would like. I'm considering heat treating the belly and adding some reflex. Once the belly wood cells have been compressed, will it just return to the same level of set?

[organic_archer]

In my experience, it always has noticeable benefits for whitewoods but osage can be hit or miss. Sometimes a late heat treatment helps, and sometimes it creeps back to its pre-heated shape. Depends on the quality of the piece. For me it’s usually the ones with less than perfect early to late wood ratios that won’t hold it.

[Lee Lobbestael]

Thanks,  this one has a good ratio. Maybe I'll give it a try

[superdav95]

Interesting that you bring this up.  I’m doing a white wood bow now that’s a recurve.  In this case I only got to basic floor tiller barely then heat treatment.  I added the recurves prior to heat treat.   My thinking for white woods is that there are benefits to heat treatment like organic said for sure.  I found that the performance goes up yet again with heat treatment prior to tiller.  I’ve done both ways and there is a difference in performance and set.  As for Osage it is hit and miss for me.  Osage can be made too brittle if heated too much.  It’s a risk but if you go slow you’ll be ok.  Don’t ask too much of you piece either.  Sometimes getting greedy with tons of reflex is also not possible and usually ends in disaster.  Osage is pretty resilient stuff just use the least amount of heat to get what you need done.  Best of luck. 

[Lee Lobbestael]

Good advice, thank you

[Marc St Louis]

The first bow I ever heat-treated was done after it was fully tillered, this was the bow I wrote about in a PA issue in early 2000.

P.S. Shortly after I wrote that article a member decided to "fix" an Osage bow he had, unfortunately he steamed the bow straight first and the heat-treating did some nasty things to the bow.

[Eric Krewson]

I use any osage I have, I back substandard light weight osage with bamboo glued in a reflex. In spite of the glued in reflex several of these bows took set and were very poor performers.

I had made one of these BBOs to auction off at a local tournament to raise money for the Alabama Childern's Hospital, the time was closing in and I had a bow that didn't meet my standards. Up to this point I hadn't done much heat treating but decided to give it a try, I put the bow on my reflex form and toasted the limbs to a light brown. The change was amazing, I did have to retiller the bow to get the poundage back down where it was, the bow had turned into a rocket launcher.

The bow raised a good amount of money for the cause, I kept track of the bow through the years, it kept its reflex and initial poundage and has remained a top-notch performer. I made a matching set of arrows to go with the bow so the bidders could test shoot the bow and see what a good shooter it was.

The young lady whose Granddad bought her the bow is probably still shooting it today.






 

[Selfbowman]

Good story and great donation Eric.

[bjrogg]

Good story and great donation Eric.

I agree Arvin


I find a good heat treatment late in the tillering process really seems to help my HHB. More consistently than Osage.

You can definitely feel the difference scraping off the heat treated HHB. It is much harder than without heat.

Smells pretty good too. Don’t care for the smell heating Osage.

Bjrogg

[George Tsoukalas]

That warmed my heart, Eric. Bless you. Jawge

[superdav95]

I use any osage I have, I back substandard light weight osage with bamboo glued in a reflex. In spite of the glued in reflex several of these bows took set and were very poor performers.

I had made one of these BBOs to auction off at a local tournament to raise money for the Alabama Childern's Hospital, the time was closing in and I had a bow that didn't meet my standards. Up to this point I hadn't done much heat treating but decided to give it a try, I put the bow on my reflex form and toasted the limbs to a light brown. The change was amazing, I did have to retiller the bow to get the poundage back down where it was, the bow had turned into a rocket launcher.

The bow raised a good amount of money for the cause, I kept track of the bow through the years, it kept its reflex and initial poundage and has remained a top-notch performer. I made a matching set of arrows to go with the bow so the bidders could test shoot the bow and see what a good shooter it was.

The young lady whose Granddad bought her the bow is probably still shooting it today.

The is a great story and great cause.  Interesting that you heat treat the belly after glue up of the boo backing tillered bow.  Did the heat not affect the glue up?   It’s cool that it worked out well.  How did you do the heating of the belly and not affect the glue?  I’d like to know.  Thanks for posting. 

[Eric Krewson]

I made that bow back in the Urac 185 days, the glue is bomb proof, I frequently made heat adjustments to bows I glued up with the stuff and never had a delamination.

[superdav95]

Ah yes that makes sense.  I guess one could do the same but in different order using 2 part epoxy laminate glue.  You could heat treat the Osage lam prior to glue up.  This may be something I will have to try down the road soon.  Thanks for posting

[Eric Krewson]

I lost count of how many bows I donated to this cause, I did it every year for a while until my bow building wound down. I have a BBO on the wall of my shop right now that was headed to the auction but a bad hip replacement shut down my tournament participation, I sold my camper and became a homebody.

On a sad footnote; I donated a copperhead backed osage bow with all the bells and whistles, the top bid was $500. I handed 5 crisp $100 bills to the club president to add to the tournament proceeds that would be donated to the Childrens Hospital, the total was $3500.

A few weeks later the hospital representative said she never got the money, a member who was formerly a prison warden checked the paper trail and found out the woman who was president had been stealing the club proceeds for years. There was a paper trail of $10,000 that was missing, there was no accounting for any cash money that had been stolen, my $500 was just gone.

The woman was given a choice of paying back the $10,000 or going to jail, she did pay the money back over time. She had probably stolen at least that much in cash but there was no way to prove it. She and her family were permanently banned from any and all tournaments in the area. Her husband was one of those fake Navy Seals we hear so much about so lies and deception ran in their family.

[superdav95]

Wow she got off easy I would say.  At least the cause got some of the money back.