Heat treat

[Allyn T]

First I want to apologize, I feel like I've been on here a lot lately and I don't like taking up everyone's time, so I'm sorry. Ok now the questions, when is the best time to heat treat a bow? Is it after floor tiller or midway to draw length or after tillering is almost complete? Also if you do heat treat in the beginning do you still remove wood from the belly whilst tillering or only from the sides?

[Pat B]

No need to apologize. We are help you with whatever you are having trouble with.
I usually heat treat after first brace while I'm making heat adjustments and straightening.
You have to remove belly wood to proceed with tillering.

[Allyn T]

Ok thank you Pat, first brace is that a low brace or what you think will be your finished brace height

[Pat B]

First brace is a low brace, 3" or so. This is the point where I determine if everything is lined up and the string is tracking right. Once I'm at this point I can determine where any adjustments are needed so I'll clamp the bow to a form at the handle and work out each limb heating, clamping and use wedges to align the limbs and take any unwanted twists or lateral bends out. After the bow is fully clamped and while it is still warm from the heat adjustments I once more go over both limbs with the heat gun to temper the belly to a nice chocolate brown color. I don't deep heat like Marc St Louis does but enough to be effective.

[DC]

You can heat treat more than once.

[Allyn T]

Thank you Pat that's the kind of detail I need in explanations lol otherwise I over think things. DC I suppose that is true, I just wanna do it right the first time

[Deerhunter21]

First I want to apologize, I feel like I've been on here a lot lately and I don't like taking up everyone's time, so I'm sorry.

I feel like we are all like this when we first join! lol! i was!! post as much as you need!! Its hard trying to figure it out yourself without any help! sometimes i come on here and no one has posted anything! and trust me! it awesome to see 5 topics by the same person! and compared to no topics at all its a miracle! seeing multiple topics allows, at least me, to see what the person is doing and it helps me learn even more!

[bradsmith2010]

yes I agree,, never to many questions,, always leads to more information than the original question

[Allyn T]

Deer I do feel the same way, I like seeing new post and reading what everyone has to say. Brad that is true, I've lead people away from the original topic myself before lol

[Deerhunter21]

Deer I do feel the same way, I like seeing new post and reading what everyone has to say. Brad that is true, I've lead people away from the original topic myself before lol

hahahaha!!! i can never stay on topic for some.... oops did it again lol!! ok so when i heat treat i.... uhhhhh..... well i do it when i feel like i need to... i dont have a specific time. but i can say this, the closer you are to final tiller, the more likely it is that the more heavily heat treated wood will stay on. if you do it when its still a loooonnngg ways away from final tiller, your probably going to remove most of the really well heated wood. thats why you want to try to do a deep one whenever you can (a heat treated bow does not need to show color for it to be heat treated) and if you remove heat treated wood from the belly, remember, its still probably there, just not colored. and if the tillers good then dont mess with it, and if you need to you can always heat treat it again.


Pat B.s explination was probably way better... everything works in my head but once i put it on paper i realize a 3D thought is hard to write down on a 2D piece of paper if you get the analogy.

[Pappy]

Usually after first brace and then again at about 20 inches. 
 Pappy

[bassman]

I heat treat on a form to get everything straight right from the beginning ,and belly heat treat through the tillering process.That works best for me, but their are different ways to do it as mentioned above.

[Fox]

Usually after first brace and then again at about 20 inches. 
 Pappy

+1

[Allyn T]

I think I'm gonna try no heat and if I start taking set I'm gonna juice the belly with some toasty heat treat bam!

[Bob Barnes]

just me, but I give the wood a day or two to stabilize after I do a hard heat treat during late tillering.  It may not be necessary, but it seems like the moisture content needs to settle first.