Makin a half-eye scrap stave shorty...conclusions / tips added

[Pappy]

Thanks for sharing Rich,cool shorties you and JohnW are building. Seems yall have it down.
   Pappy

[Del the cat]

Very interesting to hear some new ideas, new thinking and questioning of the received wisdom.
Del

[half eye]

Randman, you are absolutely correct, thank you

H Rhodes, Randman.... I have seen and read 4 or 5 different accounts on the topic that essentially said......" after each use the carrier was carefull to oil his bow and carefully straighten it, and only then place it to rest".....what I do is not exactly that because the bow has no oil or grease at the build stage, but the priciple is the same, and after the bow has it's pitch and grease finish then it is the same.

Pappy, thank you /  but I hope I never get to where I figure there aint nothin left to learn

Del, not trying to against the grain, more of a case of trying the old ways to see if" that really works". People who do things for a living (survival) usually are worth copying to see if ya can get in their mindset.

Thanks for all the comments, I really hope you find some use in this.
rich

[George Tsoukalas]

Excellent thread, Half Eye. You erally get the maximum amount o draw from a stave.
Thanks for posting.
Jawge

[PatM]

Is it worthwhile to do that for any reason? Does the performance get any better? It seems like it would be similar to "soft" retained reflex in a backed bow where the backing is just pulling the stave back into reflex but the belly is still damaged.

[half eye]

Hey Pat, maybe you should build a few and find out for yourself, otherwise all it's gonna be is another of your rhetorical arguments. You dont like me, you dont understand me, so it's all negative anyway. Perhaps you can do your own experiments and simply post your results, then it's not all hypothetical and your results can stand on their own to be accepted or rejected as readers see fit.
rich

[Badger]

    My thoughts on counter bending a bow. I feel their is some logic at some level behind it. I also see some potential for damage doing it.
    On the plus side, we don't always know how much moisture was in a bow when we put it away. If a bow took a little extra set while shooting and the moisture was slightly high it will have some healing ability while not in use if stored in a straight or reflexed position. If a bow was drawn past it's intended draw weight storing straight or reflexed can also" heal" some of that.

    On the negative side, bending a bow back and forth can have a rubberizing effect on the wood making it look good but shoot bad. This method is used in furniture making and decorating or design. A pice of wood is compressed to keeep splinterds down then systematicaly bent back and forth several times to make the wood malable. All of it's strength is gone but it still looks the same. As Pat above indictaed we have soft and hard set, hard set seems to perform better, a soft set bow can be pushed right back into shape after shooting and unstringing, a hard set bow takes a lot of effort to bend backward and does not respond to being quicly forced back. The bow with hard set has less damage.

[half eye]

Badger, Thank you for your opinion. But the quick constant bending back and forth you describe is not the real situation. If your bow is strung all day hunting or target shooting, and then unstrung and carefully and slowly pushed back to it's original shape it is hardly being overstressed. Anyway I have posted what I do and why I do it in replicating the shorter NA bows. I don't believe that cooked in reflex, or glued in reflex and rigid handled bows are the least comparable to short circle bend bows. I'm trying to replicate a situation I have read and heard about and see how it works out, and I've done that to my satisfaction.

I really hope that my post gives food for thought, and dont believe that I ever said this or that was Gospel, just that I was doing this and what the results are/were.
rich

[PatM]

Hey Pat, maybe you should build a few and find out for yourself, otherwise all it's gonna be is another of your rhetorical arguments. You dont like me, you dont understand me, so it's all negative anyway. Perhaps you can do your own experiments and simply post your results, then it's not all hypothetical and your results can stand on their own to be accepted or rejected as readers see fit.
rich

Eh? Where the heck do you get that from? You need to stop playing the beleaguered old man card.

 I used to make bows as a kid this way and I couldn't say that the bows actually shot any different so I stopped doing that.
 
 

[half eye]

Sarcasm in the form of a question is still sarcasm,,,,I choose not to play.
rich

[Badger]

  Halfeye, you make a lot of important contributions here. All the various tyles of making bows will appeal to different folks. Your enthusiasm and willingness to experiment is great. Peer review just means that at one time or another something we say may be challenged. Like myself the more we say the more likley it will be we get challenged. One issue right or wrong takes nothing away from everything else you have done.

[autologus]

I have a question that maybe you all can answer. 

What is the difference in string follow that straightens itself out after resting and manually straightening out the string follow yourself? 

To me this is what Rich is essentially doing by manually reflexing the bow slightly after unstringing, whether this is good or bad I do not feel like I am experienced enough to make that argument but I would certainly agree if done it should be done carefully and barely past flat so as not to over stress the belly under tension.

Grady

[Badger]

  As said by Rich above, nothing wrong with storing a bow stright if it wants to be straight, damage is allready done. But if someone is forceing it back into straight it can have a rubberizing effect on the wood.

[autologus]

This would be a good experiment to gather some empirical evidence to support either argument. 

1. Measure the amount of initial set/reflex of the bow's limbs and record.
2. Shoot 10 arrows through a chronograph and record the average speed in fps.
3. Leave the bow strung for 1 hour.
4. Shoot 10 arrows through a chronograph and record the average speed in fps.
5. Unstring the bow and measure the amount of stringfollow of the bows limbs and record.
6. Manually reflex the limbs to their original position.

Repeat the steps above every day for a period of about 20 days then observe the data to see if there is an appreciable affect on the bows performance.

Grady

[Badger]

  That would be a good test, I doubt it would hurt anything unless you progressively kept pushing a little further back on it. Test like that are good and would be interesting but few of us are inclined to spend that kind of time on this type of issue. I would be interested in reading the results though.