string follow question

[Weylin]

How do you measure string follow?

[Badger]

Hold your bow with the back against a wall and measyre how far the tips are from the wall just after unstringing the bow. I you wait it won't be an accurate reading. Steve

[Weylin]

Im working on a Hickory selfbow. I'm still in the tillering process and I haven't gotten to full draw yet but my your method I have 2 1/2" string follow on one limb and 1 1/2" on the other limb. Is this something that I should be concerned with or is it par for the course?

[sailordad]

wel i always check how much reflex or deflex the stave has to start with.
then after the bow is tillered and finished i recheck and then i know how much follow i have.

[Badger]

A little string follow is normal, 2 1/2" is starting to get excessive and I would maybe suspect wood that wasn't fully dry. Kind of hard to expalin by you can have 1 kind of string follow I call hard and the other soft, If you can push the bow to the floor and remove most of the follow you have soft limbs if you push the bow to the floor and the limb is still stiff and follow wont push out then you have hard folow and it seems to perform better than a bow with soft follow. Steve

[Little John]

Check out the heat treating chapter in TBBIIII  it helps hickopry a lot. I think most set in hickory is from crushed belly cells and this is what heat treating the belly helps.   

[Weylin]

Thanks, I'll look into the heat treating. Is that something I should do now, before the bow is finished, or should I wait until I am done tillering? I believe the culprit is the wet Portland winter my bow just endured. The stave was seasoned by a very experienced bowyer, so I think it was good to start with but I just moved to Portland this winter and Im not sure it has shed enough moisture yet since it has become hot and dry. Should the heat treating help the moisture content?

[Little John]

Alot of things cause set and moisture is one of them. In a humid area you should keep your stave in a hot box. I live in a virtual desert but still keep an in progress bow leaned up in the corner behind our wood stove. A wider and or longer bow picks up less set and a heaver and longer draw more. Heat treating is not really a seasoning or drying method but tempers the belly of the bow and makes the bow too dry till it comes back to 6-7% moisture content. Really the heat treating should have been done before the set occured but could still benefit you some.     Kenneth