A Red Oak Board Bow Explosion!

[RyanY]

I've been more engaged in some bow making facebook groups lately and have seen a ton of questions about backing board bows. It seems there's a myth that board bows need to be backed for some kind of protection. Selecting boards with good grain, good design, and good tiller are all that's needed for a bow. To demonstrate this, I decided to blow up a bow that I had messed up during the finishing process. The back of the bow is crowned to add to the demonstration. I think it ended up being pulled to around 40" before exploding and even then it wasn't a quick process. I think I had too much fun doing this but it made for an effective demonstration.  I was personally surprised it pulled as far as it did.

Video of the explosion (not monetized): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3941cMoi1o&feature=youtu.be

[RyanY]

Pictures of the break and the set in the surviving limb.

[Pat B]

Thanks for the fun, Ryan.    Seeing a bow break like that can teach you a lot about the wood used. Fun to study those breaks to see just where and for what reason they break.

[DC]

You should have kept it .
I have the same scale. Right at the 1:00 min mark you go up and reset the scale. I'm wondering why. I'm thinking there may be a feature I don't understand.

[paulsemp]

Funny the ones you want to break can go out to 40 in and the ones you don't want to break blow up at 26

[RyanY]

You should have kept it .
I have the same scale. Right at the 1:00 min mark you go up and reset the scale. I'm wondering why. I'm thinking there may be a feature I don't understand.

When the weight is steady it holds that number till I tare it again.

Funny the ones you want to break can go out to 40 in and the ones you don't want to break blow up at 26

Ain’t that the truth! 

[WhistlingBadger]

That was fun to watch, Ryan.  It's always fun breaking stuff on purpose.     Thanks for sharing.  T

[simson]

As DC said, you should have kept it - it was a nice one.
Have you measured the humidity - that break looks like very dry

[Tuomo]

White oak bow, straight from the board, 50#@28", exploded at 41 inch draw.

h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdTK26j3WdM

[BowEd]

It's good to experiment.
PS...To add here I did a fair amount of experimenting with red cedar....Ha Ha.

[RyanY]

As DC said, you should have kept it - it was a nice one.
Have you measured the humidity - that break looks like very dry

Thanks Simson. I really made a mess of the finish on that one and it just wasn’t worth it to me to put more work into it. I think it was around 8-9% having measured another bow from the same board a few months ago.

[Del the cat]

Great vid ... had me wincing
Del

[silent sniper]

Very cool, I definitely enjoyed it 👍🏻

[Hawkdancer]

I think I will keep my old "hard hat"!  And get a new face shield before I try that!  Interesting experiment!
Hawkdancer

[Hamish]

Cool video. How far do you think it pulled before it blew?

In hindsight it would have been interesting to see how the bow degraded incrementally by unstringing and measuring the set before increasing the draw. Oh well I suppose you can try that on your next one.