How Stable Are Your Bows?

[PatM]

I'm just clarifying what water vapor does. Tim Baker seemed to want to give us the impression that there was low lying clouds in our homes.

[Springbuck]

[/quote  I never did like that phrase about a good selfbow being 90% broke.
[/quote]

Sooooooo, 89% broke, then?   ;-)

[Badger]

[/quote  I never did like that phrase about a good selfbow being 90% broke.

Sooooooo, 89% broke, then?   ;-)
[/quote]

  I would hope less than 80%

[joachimM]

I have never noticed a problem from storing staves vertically,  but it sounds very possible that water would sink into the bottom limb..so I turn them around occasionally...

Vertical storage doesnt relate to water sinking in the limb, the capillary action in wood vessels is much stronger than gravity.
The point about bottom limbs having higher MC is IMHO caused by temperature being lower close to the ground in heated rooms (heat goes up)  and moisture levels being higher (more damp) in the colder micro-environment the bottom limb experiences relative to the upper limb.
Joachim

[Lumberman]

If you store it vertically and in a cardboard container there is goons to be more moisture in the bottom because as moisture evaporates off the wood it cools and sinks. Drying lumber even outside where the moisture is going to be more evenly diffused into the air we have to keep the lumber piles 4-5" off the ground and even then the bottom packs will have higher MC than the ones up top. That is properly stickered air drying lumber too...

[PatM]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_vapor

[Lumberman]

Right, it's not that the water is sinking in the wood it is that the humidity is higher in the box which slows the evaporation from the limb where the one exposed to the currents however so slight will lose moisture more readily. I am not a moistureologist but I do dry wood for a living and don't trust everything you might google or or intuitively suppose haha. I googled how to make a bow a few months ago and what I "learned" was lot different from what I've learned here lol

[PatM]

I'm not disputing that lower limbs  or boards might be damper, I'm disputing how they become that way. We can't make up stuff that is disputed by Science.
 My intuition says it's because the ground has more  moisture, not the air and the wood wicks that up.

[sleek]

Wooden floors require moisture barriers for a reason. Fog settles.... Dew settles... Earth is damp.  Perhaps it many reasons and not one single. I k ow high altitude air is dry...

[BowEd]

A friend of mine set his in tiller hickory bow in a corner.The floor was concrete.After a few months the lower limb was bent more.Seeing is believing.Another friend would set an osage stave that way to dry to induce reflex in the lower limb over time.Then turn it around for the other limb.I'm sure that's been heard of before but now the use of the heat gun is wide spread.Now storing them vertically off the ground does'nt seem to bother much from what I see but don't trust it and store them horizontally.Air movement takes care of it.I quess people will have their quirks about things.I say whatever works do it.

[PatM]

Wooden floors require moisture barriers for a reason. Fog settles.... Dew settles... Earth is damp.  Perhaps it many reasons and not one single. I k ow high altitude air is dry...

    Yes, but neither fog nor dew are water  vapor.
  I guess it depends where this bow storage barrel is.   Fog and Dew are more of an outdoor phenomena.