black locust wont heat treat.

[sleek]

I am working a stave from the tree of hell. AKA black locust. From stave form it had 3" of deflex on one limb and 2" of deflex on the other. Its a 62 inch long bow pyramid style going for elliptical tiller and 40#@ 28. Being so low a weight Iwant it to be snappy when shot and deflex inho doesnt help. So I strapped it to a 2x4, put a wedge under mid limb to induce 1 inch of reflex. I heated each limb for 30 min. I got it to the poi t of heat the wood just bbarely started darkening.  I waited a day and took it off. It kept no reflex and went to almost straight. I was happy. Until I put a string on it. It went right back to where it was. Agh... I dont like black locust. Any tips?

[Blaflair2]

Burn the snot outta the belly

[sleek]

Man if thats the way I think I will give up on BL.what sucks is I need this bow done sat. If I do that, I will over dry the wood. Think if I wipe water on it allot for a few hours after it will help?  Any tricks for not dehydrating the back? Wet towel maybe?

[DarkSoul]

No, do NOT put water on (a heat treated) bow. That'll do more harm than good.
Just heat treat it again today, but more intensely this time. Don't char the belly, but just darken it a few shades. If you let it hydrate overnight, that will be plenty of time for the wood to recover to EMC. Some people don't even wait at all, and shoot the bow an hour after heat treating the belly, when the wood has only cooled down.

[TRACY]

Time won't allow for you, but I'm steaming black locust and doing all my corrections at one time on the caul after a  couple of issues with heat treating BL.

Tracy

[Marc St Louis]

No, do NOT put water on (a heat treated) bow. That'll do more harm than good.
Just heat treat it again today, but more intensely this time. Don't char the belly, but just darken it a few shades. If you let it hydrate overnight, that will be plenty of time for the wood to recover to EMC. Some people don't even wait at all, and shoot the bow an hour after heat treating the belly, when the wood has only cooled down.

Actually I have put water on the wood right after heat-treating with no adverse effects, not a lot of water though.  Heck I've even rubbed snow on the back during the winter to cool it down fast and that did no harm either.  No more water once cool though.

P.S.  BL does heat-treat quite well but I have always taken at least a couple hours to do a bow and the color once done runs to dark brown, not black

[sleek]

Thanks guys will be heat treating to a dark brown then. Marc and Tracy, do yall ever string and shoot right after a heat treat without concern for over dry wood breaking?

[gutpile]

no...do not string right after heat treating..I give it a couple of days to rehydrate some...gut

[PEARL DRUMS]

Wait until its cooled completely and continue with your bow, waiting days does nothing at all. Usually 2-3 hours is fine. Its not deprived of moisture after tempering. Weigh it and you'll see that. If you chose dry wood to begin with there isn't any noticeable moisture left to drive out. Keep in mind heat treating isn't simply making the wood brown or black, its much deeper than that. Ive seen folks hold heat guns 1" away just scorching the wood and not doing anything beneficial at all, maybe just a heat shaping with color I guess. 3-4" away is usually good and each limb will take at least 45 minutes to do right. Its deep heating, not just surface scorching.

[JonW]

I have used a lot of locust lately and only heat treated it once. I have had only one bow chrysal and it was the latest one. Locust heat CORRECTS easily. You don't even need to change the color for correcting. I only wait an hour or two after heating to start bending. Knock on wood I've never had an adverse reaction.

[RBLusthaus]

I agree with Jon, BL heat corrects fairly easily.  I usually make several small corrections while I am bringing her to brace.  Heat treating BL requires lots of patience.  Like 40 minutes per limb kinda patience.  As Marc says, it gets to be a real nice dark brown, but make sure she is clamped tite when you do it, or she will move on you. 

Russ
     

[sleek]

Well guys im bring the tiller around now then gonna spend 2 hours heat treating it seems. Wish me luck. I will post when im done.

[sleek]

Well 3 inches of set later.... man i tell ya im about ready to snap it across my knee.

I had it to 40#@20" before treating. I guess I scraped allot of the heat treat off. So its back to the heat gun...

[PEARL DRUMS]

Sounds either wet, or just junk locust.

[JonW]

If you do it right you can't scrape off a heat treat. It goes THROUGH the wood if done right. Is your Locust thick ringed?