Straightening osage and adding recurves

[Will B]

I’m currently working on a 3-year old, thin-ringed, Osage takedown bow. I used my heat gun to straighten one of the limbs which was out of alignment by over 1-1/2”. I plan to use steam to bend some recurves in the limb tips now that I have everything lined up.

My question:  Will the limb I straightened return to its original alignment during the steaming process, or will I be okay now that I’ve straightened the limb?

Would I be better off using dry heat?  I’ve personally had much better luck steaming my recurves instead of using dry heat.

Thanks for any thoughts you all might have.
Will

[Pat B]

Steam for the recurves. You will probably have to realign the limbs anyway once the recurves are in to get the string to align. 

[Will B]

Okay sounds good. Thanks Pat

[Pat B]

Heat gun is usually fine for realignment in most cases with osage.

[Kidder]

I usually use dry heat for recurves. It allows you to really feel the wood become elastic and allows you to go slower in your bend and not having to worry about the wood cooling. I’d probably use steam though for anything severe. You might lose some of your corrections but it probably won’t matter as you’ll likely find you’ll need more corrections after adding recurves anyways. Good luck!

[bjrogg]

I usually just steam the area of the recurve and tip. I have a half bow caul and I do my recurves one limb at a time.

I usually put the recurve in with steam. Put it on my caul and bend it. Then work my way up to the handle straightening with dry heat.

Then let everything cool down good before removing from caul. Osage is usually very cooperative.

Bjrogg

[Will B]

Sounds good fellas, thanks

[superdav95]

I’ve started using a smaller recurve caul or jig one each for each tip.  Similar to bj and pat I use steam for recurves and feel it’s safer and cracks less.  The other benefit is you will not overheat the wood this way.  I prefer this over boiled tips.   I like doing them separately too with steam and then using dry heat for alignment the rest of the bow where needed.