Desert Bowyers

[loefflerchuck]

 I hear so much on this site about trying to keep moisture content in wood down. Toasting bellies, etc.... Living in the high desert the problems go the other way. Moisture content in staves falling to 0%.  Wintertime bowmaking resulting in all broken bows.
 I've learned lots of tricks to keep bows in tact out here. For example using a humidifier to keep the room where all my bows and staves stay in the winter at 40-55%. I know there are a few desert bowyers out there who would like to ask questions or give tips to the rest of us. 
 

[Prarie Bowyer]

I never thought about that.   I'm in the "sauna belt" so it's usualy hot and humid or cold and wet.  Wow.

[Justin Snyder]

I have a hot box..... of sorts. I keep a pan of water in the hot box to try to increase moisture.

[NTD]

Hot box huh....you mean your garage there Justin   We do have a special set of problems but probably no worse than anywhere else, just different.  I can tell you that I really only enjoy making bows between October and Aprilish....too dang hot the rest of the time...need some AC in the shop....

[loefflerchuck]

Does get quite hot. I'm enjoying this cold front right now. I've heard of the wet, hot box method. I used a $30 humidifier in one room of the house. However you keep your wood,  I think the most important thing is a $12 humidity reader.

[Justin Snyder]

Yes Nate, my garage is a hot box.

I actually did a lot of checking with a moisture meter a couple of years ago. If you keep your wood in a shaded area it doesn't get to dry. The only exception was yew. It's moisture content gets down so low it can explode. Woods like osage, black locust and Ipe seem to stop loosing moisture at around 10% and hickory stops about 8% which is right where you want them to be.

You definitely want to keep them out of the direct sunlight though. I put a broken hickory bow in the sun to see what would happen. In a couple of days it's MC was down between 5-6 and within a week it started to check.

[loefflerchuck]

Thanks for the wood info Justin. I usually  use local wood here, juniper, serviceberry, chokecherry... I have had good luck with yew. That stuff is hard to break. The biggest enemy is central air in my house. The ac sucks the house pretty dry in the summer, but not too bad. The floor vent heater dries the already dry winter air to the point where all the bows that took a while to finish broke till I started paying attention to humidity in the air and moisture in the wood.
 I have a question about just how low moisture can get in a normal looking stave. I have a cheap moisture meter and it had sometimes read 0%. It had read this in finished sinew backed juniper bows that shot without exploding. Is this possible or do I need to get a better meter?

[Justin Snyder]

Not possible from my experience. Even the hickory that I left outside that was bleaching and checking had a MC of 4%. I think it would take years (or a match) to get below that.

Just to give the rest of you an idea of what dry is, it has been raining off and on most of the week, today has been sunny/partly cloudy and the RH is down to 28% already. Last week we were overcast and the RH was between 24% and 8% depending on the time of day. OH yeah, and the temp is already back to 90*.

[NTD]

Funny that you mention that Justin.  7 days straight of rain, wettest september in recorded history and it's 22% RH out   only problem I've had is checking from wood that came a lil wet and dried to quick here and bamboo curling on me that came flat.  Osage, ipe, and elm have treated me dang good here.

[Justin Snyder]

Nate, I hauled wood from Pappy's that had been curing for several years. I dot it home and within a week it had checking.

[NTD]

Yep, our own little unique problems.  Course I never have a problem with tru-oil drying, and I can shoot most of the year in a t-shirt, and I don't lose any arrows in the snow

[Justin Snyder]

Yep, our own little unique problems.  Course I never have a problem with tru-oil drying, and I can shoot most of the year in a t-shirt, and I don't lose any arrows in the snow

My thoughts exactly Nate. Its snowing all over the place this week and still t-shirt weather here.

[JW_Halverson]

Yep, our own little unique problems.  Course I never have a problem with tru-oil drying, and I can shoot most of the year in a t-shirt, and I don't lose any arrows in the snow

Heck with Easter Eggs, come spring I run around giddy as a school girl picking up all kinds of arrows! 

[LEGIONNAIRE]

Hi there. Well I live in southern CA in the palm springs areaa nd it is really really dry here and gets up to like 120-125 degrees. Despite this fact I really havent any problems with this. I store my wood outside in a shed I built. usually in stave or log form. Once i start roughing out a bow and get it to floor tillering dimension then I bring it inside to prevent this problem. Also I usually make my bows from wood thats like 3 months old so its still fairly gree. Then once its in floor tillering dimensions I just put it into the car and let it dry out for like a week and then tiller it.
Thats pretty much how i do it, so you can guess there are lots of bows in progress in my room. Give it a try and see if that works for you.