BOOM!

[ionicmuffin]

So heres what i have. I have a 5 piece take down! lol. not really. but it is in five pieces. I was working on my red oak trade bow. (white oak was what i was using) i had heat treated and reflexed it after getting it to tiller because i had wanted to increase the weight. I was impatient and didn't wait for the bow to re-hydrate and wound up with an explosion. If it had survived i think it would have scared me to think it might blow in someone else's hands. I will admit that this probably was one of my worst boards ive ever picked. I have had trouble understanding what people are saying by "grain" such a controversial term.... anyway. I will be picking a new board or 2 from the hardware store when i have a bit of money. i drew black lines where the rings were. to my current understanding, this board was highly violated, and i also believe that this one is a "plain sawn" board. I did see a really decent board at the lumber store a few weeks ago, sadly i didn't pick it out. I will be hunting again for a new board before too long. I believe there are 2 reasons for failure. one, it wasnt properly hydrated, two the grain of this board was in terrible violation.

[Joec123able]

That sucks man but yea that's why I don't do board bows

[ionicmuffin]

i actually really like board bows, but the issue is finding a proper board. unfortunatly at the time i bought them they seemed great. now i realize that they are pretty much junk. i suppose i could have a fire

[Joec123able]

Well a bamboo or good hickory backing can hold together a board with many run offs

[ionicmuffin]

thats true. i need to find a good backing then, need to find a good supply of bamboo. but either way, for the board bow trade i still need a new board

[lostarrow]

Be judicious with the heat . Boards this time of year will already be very dry.That heat will go all the way through .Not likely to rehydrate in a 30% RH enviro after being heated twice. JMHO.Tic ,tic,tic. That`s the clock ticking on the deadline , not a bomb

[George Tsoukalas]

Please take a few moments and take a look at my site. I go through board choice. Unless you understand the concept of grain you will have difficulty. Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/boards.html

[blackhawk]

The MC had nothing to do with that break....you coulda soaked it in a river for a month and it still Woulda snapped...that was doomed to break from the start because of poor choice in grain alone

[Weylin]

The MC had nothing to do with that break....you coulda soaked it in a river for a month and it still Woulda snapped...that was doomed to break from the start because of poor choice in grain alone

+1

I don't think the highly reflexed high stress design helped either. But in a way it did you a favor because it insured that the bow broke in your hands rather than eventually/inevitably in someone elses. I've never built a bow from a  board so I don't really speak from experience but from the collective wisdom that I've gathered here, board selection for good grain is the first and most important factor in the success of a board bow and cannot be ignored regardless of backing or design considerations. Good luck on your next one.

[ionicmuffin]

well, actually here in washington we have a rh of around 70% lol. i had already achieved full draw and more, so i strongly doubt it wouldnt have effected the bow. it was probably at 4% mc. Keep in mind it wasnt red oak its white. so i have a feeling that it would have taken a LOT more than red. ive had red oak blow for no apparent reason, where as ive never had white blow, this was a first, and the first time i didnt wait after heat treating. But of course i still accept the fact that the grain was poorly chosen.
like i said before. ill be working on finding good stuff, i had seriously seen something similar to http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,24411.15.html
the grain wiggle a tiny bit but the over all grain was strait. the grain went from tip to tip

[The Gopher]

The worst bow explosion i've had the displeasure of being involved in (blew at full draw and i punched myself right in the nose) was on a WHITE oak board, that was a really good board...until it wasn't.

[ionicmuffin]

im very fortunate to have sustained no injuries from the explosion. i think it could have been bad.

[bubby]

any plain or flatsawn board is gonna have violations on the back, what you really need to look for are runoffs, on all four sides, check jawges site it will help you figure it out

[PEARL DRUMS]

WHEW! That is nasty grain man. MC wasnt your problem at all. Im sure you've read a thousand times before grain is all that matters in boards, that is a true story. Adding a hard backing of any sort wont hold together bad grain either, or at least not for long it wont.

[ionicmuffin]

it would be nice to understand the physics of why it wont work. im a sciency guy, so understanding that would help to see why and why it would blow so easily