I've been reading up on using heat to remove set or simply to put in some reflex to counter expected set. Pearl Drums had a great post about his experiment with removing set from an old bow. But so far, I haven't found any clear mention of using heat on the belly of laminated bows and there in lies my question.
I've finished my initial tillering of a hickory backed red oak English long bow and just glued on some horns. Next I'll need to shape the horn nocks and get ready for a final tweaking of the tiller. Given that this is my first attempt at a laminated bow, I made a noobie mistake and glued in about 7/8's inch of deflex because the clamps pulled the limbs down as it was drying. Then during the tillering the bow gained another inch and 3/8's for a total of about 2 1/4 inches of set.
An interesting discovery, and maybe this is just because I'm new to bow making, was that if I did a quick reverse flex of the bow of even just a few inches, the bow would return to the 7/8's inch of deflex/set and stay there until flexed in the normal direction at which point it would stay at 2 1/4 inches.
Finally, the questions... can I use heat on the belly to induce some reflex or at least remove the the current deflex/set? The lamination was done with Titebond III, would I be risking future delamination by heating it? And if I do heat it, how do I know when I've heated it enough?
Thanks.
