heat treatment equipment

[scp]

Even though heat treatment works well, it is too time-consuming and tedious to do it with a heat gun. Of course, it would be possible to use more than a few heat guns or halogen lamps in tandem. But only if you can manage not to blow the fuse. Has anyone here tried to use some other "non-primitive" equipments like a flexible heating element? Is there even such a thing that is capable of producing 400 degrees Fahrenheit but still available to an ordinary consumer?

[cowboy]

Dunno. I've only heat treated a couple of bows and my $20.00 heat gun from Lowe's brown's the limb up fairly quick - even in my fair weather shop.

[scp]

Cowbow, good for you. Frankly, spending an hour with a bow cannot be that bad. Holding the heat gun in the hand might be my problem. I should just make a heat gun holder. Any good design ideas other than the one in the Traditional Bowyer's Bible?

[Justin Snyder]

Even though heat treatment works well, it is too time-consuming and tedious to do it with a heat gun.

Let me start by saying I'm not trying to be a smart Alec, I  mean this very sincerely.
I'm building bows with a rasp and a scraper and you ask if heat treating is too time consuming.  I don't do it to mass produce as fast as I can, I do it because I enjoy spending the time doing it. A heat gun is plenty fast for me.

[ken75]

blow torch ?

[Hillbilly]

Even though heat treatment works well, it is too time-consuming and tedious to do it with a heat gun. Of course, it would be possible to use more than a few heat guns or halogen lamps in tandem. But only if you can manage not to blow the fuse. Has anyone here tried to use some other "non-primitive" equipments like a flexible heating element? Is there even such a thing that is capable of producing 400 degrees Fahrenheit but still available to an ordinary consumer?

Yes. Fire. It's cheap. A bed of coals works pretty good to toast a bow belly over if you're careful. I think Marc has used an electric hotplate before, and I've tried a coleman campstove. Still hard to beat the heat gun.

[wodpow]

Has anyone ever done a pig in a dirt pit I wonder if you dug a small trench along the fire pit and buried a floor tillered bow a bout two foot off  about two foot deep next to the pit would it be  a more primitive form of heat tempering or would it just char the thing to death and be like kiln drying  and make a crispy  critter? just thinking out loud !

[Jude]

That might work, if you buried the coals in sand, and lay the bow across the top.  I think that if you buried it, you would get more of a baked potato effect, rather than just heating the belly.  I recall from Marc's article in PA, that he did use a hot plate.

[Pat B]

I never noticed that heat treating a bow belly with a hand held heat gun took any longer that any other bow building technique...and who's in a rush anyway!

[Traxx]

Ive heard it said many times,and i concur,that the best tool a bowyer has is Patience.

[scp]

I'm also concerned about the evenness of the heat treatment. Not to mention the waste of electricity unless you can also use the heat generated where you live. After some Googling, I found out that we can actually get the specialty flexible heaters used in laboratories. Frankly, I'm not into gadgets enough to bother further. But I sure would like to know the way to apply the heat more evenly. Probably just more patience?

[Badger]

 I changed my method a bit a few years ago and it seems to work well as far as keeping it even. I wave the gun back and forth from one end of the limb to the other at about 2 seconds per pass. Takes about 20 min or so and the limb will just start to deepen in color a bit, the back side will bejust to hot to keep your hand on it. I stop there, no scorch or burn marks just a deeping of color and I call it done. Steve

[Traxx]

Good method!!!!

[scp]

Badger, that's what I have been doing. Mainly because I am still looking for the better way to hold the heat gun. Have you tried hot sand, hot stone, or the pressing iron?

[Pat B]

I read about a guy that tempered his boo in a pizza oven. Know anyone at Domino's.