Heat tempering to help drying?

[Kegan]

COuld temperin the belly while working a green roughed out bow help speed drying the belly? Or would it jsut be useless?

[knightd]

Yep it will help dry it.. Just be careful not to get it to hot at first...

[stiknstring]

I heard that hitting a green or wet stave with DRY heat like from a heat gun is a recipe for checking. Could I be wrong here....

[Kegan]

I heard that hitting a green or wet stave with DRY heat like from a heat gun is a recipe for checking. Could I be wrong here....

I had experience with that on an ELB. However, I'm going for athin-limbed flatbow on this one (guess I should have clarified ). 

[Marc St Louis]

COuld temperin the belly while working a green roughed out bow help speed drying the belly?

Big mistake

[Pat B]

I think I would let your stave dry for a while before heating enough to temper the belly. Once reduced to floor tiller stage and let dry for a few weeks or so in a warm dry place you should be able to temper it...beginning slowly. Try a test piece first unless you have an extra stave you can spare for science.

[knightd]

Ok while where on the subject.. Is there some woods that you should or should not heat?? Ive cut saplings and used a fire to burn the belly wood and scrape off the burnt excess wood and then roughed out the bow and finished it and was shooting it in hours..

[Kegan]

Okay, I'll just sit it by the wood stove. Good to know before I ruined a good stave!

[Gordon]

If you try to heat treat green wood it will likely check on you.

[Ryano]

Steaming green wood will help speed up the drying process and shouldnt make the wood check like dry heat either....I've steam bent recurves into semi green wood lots of times.

[Pappy]

I steam wet wood and dry heat dry wood,It will most likely check if you heat it green.
   Pappy

[adb]

Force heating fresh green wood (in my experience) = checked & twisted staves = firewood.

[Marc St Louis]

Most any wood that grows in NA will respond well to heat treating, except for BC

[JackCrafty]

Kegan, you can look up wood properties pertaining to how well the different wood species respond to kiln drying.  I think ash and red oak respond well to fast drying (dry heat)....that's one of the reasons they are so easy to get commercially.  I think elm is another one.

But, as already said, dry heat works best with dry wood.

[son of massey]

  the suggestion to use wet heat with wet wood and dry with dry is good and likely based on the fact that if you use dry heat to try and dry a wet bit of wood the outside will dry much more quickly than will the inside, which is the reason checks occur-the outside shrinks tight against a still swollen inside.   if there is any kind of sealing that occurs to the wood when heated that will trap moisture inside and not allow for even drying then either.   heating to dry a piece of wood should be done like cooking something-say a turkey.   lower heat for longer will get an even cooking temp throughout the bird, too high for too short burns the outside but leaves it cold on the inside.   if you leave it near something like a stove it helps to move it occasionally so it heats evenly. SOM