2nd bow is nearly done- a few questions

[Judo Point]

Chicknlady your doing a great job and have got some excellent bowyers given ya advice so I'm gonna leave that to them since I'm pretty new at making them myself but I do have a tip for ya on your arrows I put a narrow strip of high reflective tape around the shaft behind the feathers infront of the nock that way if they dig under the grass you can go out just at dusk and shine a flashlight and they'll jump right out at ya. Ya might wanna give it a try. Well good luck and looking forward to see your progress.

[Parnell]

You're reminding me of myself 3 years ago.  When I went to visit Eddie Parker he gave me the heads up on how to do it.  He just coated the belly and blasted away at it with a heat gun constantly moving the gun heating a large area...hitting the sides...briefly and lightly over the back...hitting the belly in circular motions until the wood begins to sort of give.  Take a rag and grab the limb and hold in some reflex on the ground for a couple of minutes 'til it cools.  Repeat if needed!  It's great to clamp a bow in a heat in reflex, don't get me wrong.  It just doesn't have to be done.

Another thing that was a beginner's curve for me was the amount of toasting needed.  I browned the wood before I had seen it done.  You should nearly blacken it - just don't create a coal.  A light sanding will take off the outer portion and you'll have more heat penetration into wood cells.  Work it gradually in - don't just let the treatment be superficial.

P.s.  Next bow - do it a few times during the process.  Make sure to give it an initial heavy treatment just after ground tiller before any set has taken place.

[bubby]

if you have a portable electric heater you can use that to heat treat, and if you have a non bending handle you can rasp the grip area to a nice radius or glue a thin strip of wood on the flat and shape to fit, Bub

[Chicknlady]

between you guys's replies and the Marc St. Louis thread on heat-treating it's beginning to sink in finally!

Let me see if I have this straight... the heat-treating permanently alters the wood cells in a good way and makes the wood snappier and the bow heavier and less likely to set again.  And having no set also keeps it snappier.   Steaming, although it will bend the set out of the bow, will not change the wood cells and therefore you don't get the performance advantages.  Plus it can get a set again.

Sooooo....  just a few last questions (sooooorry!  ), if you heat treat it more than once, are you doing a full-treatment each time, like lotsa time and blackened wood and all that??  If you did it at least once already, but need to take wood off the belly to get the poundage right, do you have to heat treat again after that?

And once your DONE, do you sand the black right off all the way, or leave it kinda charred under the finish?

[mullet]

Yes, yes, no, and yes. `maybe and yes. If you sand all the brown off you have removed the wood( refer to last question) Be carefull heat treating it, especially if it is still a little green. And after you do it or heat it to bend the limbs let it sit and rehydrate for a few days.

 If you bend the limbs I'd work on the last 1/3 of the limb and leave the set. But heat and bend it so the tips start to come back level or above the handle of the bow. You cannot correct the set that is already there because the cells have already been damaged or altered.

 And, if it was me, I'd use a cheap heat gun from Harbor Freight so you have more control.

[Chicknlady]

Mullet, I ordered a heat gun today!  It was off Amazon, basically the same gun and price as HF, but the company was based in NY, maybe it will get here faster...

So how's everyone think of this.  First, I thin down the width of the upper limbs down to the previously suggested 1/2" at the nock.   Then, put the whole bow in some kind of jig to hold it about straight, maybe a hair past straight especially towards the tips.  Then, heat treat the whole thing thoroughly right from the fades to the tips (do you heat treat the handle??).  Then, wait wait wait maybe a week, then tiller, and remove whatever needs to be removed, so's I can shoot it, from the belly.

One last dumb question ( ), does heat-treating basically "freeze" a bow in whatever position it's in when it cools?  So, like, if I heat-treated this bow with it's 2" or so set, no jig, it would STAY like that forever and ever? (more or less??)

[Parnell]

Mmmm, I wouldn't say it freezes it, it just helps prevent set.  There will still be some, just not as much and of course, it varies from wood to wood on how much.  Some reflex will come out when tillering, generally.  It's hard to describe completely, and as you continue to do it - bow to bow, you'll come to understand it's points, naturally. 
If you build a bow long and wide - overbuilt, then heat treat - you'll have minimal set, if any, maybe even retain some reflex, but you've got more wood on the bow and will lose some cast.  If you really push the limits on building a bow, shorter, narrow, etc., heat treat the bow you may have more set but you've got a more efficient bow so cast may be greater.  Then throw in wood to wood, stave to stave, well you probably catch my drift.  It's just another thing that makes each bow unique!

Don't be afraid to mess up, as I'm often told, it's only a piece of wood.

[Chicknlady]

Just an update, since I know everyone is dying to know how it turned out!   

Finished (mostly!) the bow today.  As per suggestions, I heat-treated the bow in a lightly reflexed position, then narrowed the outer limbs down to 1/2" at the tips...  tillered, cut too much in one spot and thought I'd ruined it.    It bent badly mid-upper-limb, took alot of set right there at that spot.    Luckily I was able to even it out enough to save it, and heat-treated reflexed AGAIN.   I don't have a scale, but I think it's about 35 pounds, I was aiming for 40 before the OOPSY   .

Shoots nice!!   I finished it with (believe it or not) what we call here "BS" (you know what I'm abbreviating!)  from an oil well.  It's mainly paraffin, mixed with all sorts of nice volatiles, crude oil, and what-nots.  Makes a nice waterproofing and preservative, though.  Wood doesn't rot much in the oil fields, if soaked in BS.  The handle is wrapped with paracord.  I didn't glue it, wasn't sure if I'd like it or not, but it seems pretty tight for now.  It has about 1-1/2" of set.

About those Flemish strings, does anyone wrap serving around the spliced area below the loops??  The instructions didn't say to, but I find I keep smoothing & waxing the ratty little bits sticking out so it looks better.   I also see I made the loops too big, and the twist in the string isn't very symmetrical. 

It's not fancy, didn't spend alot of time making it beautiful, but I wanted a usable bow to practice with and eventually take stump-shooting.  NEXT bow will be prettier!! 

[AJMag]

Purdy... My strings are doing the same thing, but I just started making them too. I consider it character to another piece of the puzzle made at home. But no to the serving of those areas. You could put some fluffy silencers or something over them so they aren't seen.

[JW_Halverson]

If the curlies below the nock loops bother me too much I will singe them with a lit wooden match and smooth them down with a little more wax.

Nice looking bow.  The paracord makes a good looking handle wrap!

[RobWiden]

    I don't cut the ends of the tails off flush with the string, I leave about 1/4" sticking out. Then I melt the ends until they're almost down to the string and quickly press the melted end down onto the string. This leaves a hard end that's too big to pull out and get ratty again. It's really important to have wet fingers to press the melted ends down with, so it doesn't stick to your skin and burn like a son of a gun. I also use this trick for the ends when I'm serving the string.

[mikekeswick]

Try to make the twists in your string tighter together especially below the loop and at the bowyers knot. Once you have finished it eg, done all the reverese twisting then you need to twist the whole string maybe 10 revolutions.

[Eric Krewson]

Here is what you did wrong on your string;

After you make the first loop you will have a lot of opposing twist built up in your string bundles. What happens if you continue,your opposing twist will counteract the twist you put in for your second loop and you will have an area with almost no twist in your string.  This is visible in the string you have on your bow.

To eliminate this in the future, after you make your first loop, hang the loop on a hook attached to something solid, grab an individual string bundle and untwist it, full length, until you have parallel strands running from the loop to the ends of the strands. I tie a piece of string at the end of the loop twist to keep it from unravaling while I untwist the bulk of the string bundles. Do the same to the other bundle or bundles if you are making a three lay string.

Now make your other loop with the untwisted bundles of strands.

When you finish your other loop you will have more twist in your strands between the loops on one end than the other end. Holding the loop you just made, untwist the strands on each bundle in the direction of the opposite loop until the twist is pretty even between the loops, not bunched up on one end or the other.

With everything evened up, twist one loop counter clockwise 12 to 15 times to add  twist to the entire string. If your string is a little long you can twist it up more to shorten it.

It takes a lot more time to tell you what to do than to actually do it. The untwisting of strands only takes a few  minutes and makes a much rounder, evenly twisted string.

[Chicknlady]

Thanks for the string tips!!  The instructions I had were pretty basic, and although they got me through the process I made alot of mistakes.  I did try to keep the strings as separated as possible, but with my fumbling around, the twists would unravel some or loosen up, then I'd re-twist them, making a bigger mess each time...      The tip about tying on a string to keep things from unraveling sounds great!!! 

I'll try another string here soon, hopefully it'll turn out better.   ...   

So, if you need to take the string off the bow for whatever reason, how do you keep the string from unraveling?  Or do you just let it relax however it wants, then retwist the string to get your 12-15 twists??  I think some of my mess was just taking the string on and off...

Thanks!

[lesken2011]

Nice job, Lady. You were very persistent for a early try. I looks like you learned alot. I haven't even gotten into heat treating, yet. I am definitely going to have to try it, though. Congrats on your success!!