Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: PEARL DRUMS on December 09, 2011, 08:48:59 pm
-
I cut some black locust in October. It was split and ends sealed that day. Today I took one down to a clean back and sealed it up. Its a thin stave about 2" wide tapering to 1 1/2" wide, about 2" deep now. How long does locust generally take to dry to a workable stave? More than whitewood and less than osage right ;D? Dry heat later or steam bath now?
Thanks one and all experienced locust folks!
-
A good rule of thumb that i've heard is one year for every inch of thickness in the smallest dimension. So if your stave is up to 2 inches wide, that would mean about 2 years of seasoning before it's time to use it. But black locust is an oilier wood so it will release its moisture more slowly, so if it were mine I'd probably wait at least 3 or 4 years. But that's just me.
-
Pearl
I vote for a steam bath now it will speed up the drying!
Don't forget to shellac it first !
Guy
-
Your official vote has been recorded Guy.........even if you are stinkin' BUCKEYE >:D!!!!. I have never touched locust before now. It was very "osagey" smelling and feeling when I worked the back down with my drawknife. This is all new to me.
-
It takes as long as it takes. Depends on where you love, PD. I cut some a year ago but left the bark on. It was at 12%. You have a mc meter? Jawge
-
Watch it there Pearly !
I resemble that remark ! ( a worthless nut )
And I know how to find Ya ! LOL
Guy
-
Drums: Yep, Black Locust is like Osage. I believe that they're in the same family, genus, species...well you know. Pretty good bow wood. If I had tons of wood, I would wait at least a year before working it. If not, I would reduce it a little at a time.
What works for me is to debark, de-sap and establish a growth ring. Seal the back (not the belly) and wait a couple-three weeks. After that, draw out the bow profile then cut it out but leave 1/4 to 1/2-inch outside of your bow dimensions. Do not cut into the handle section. Seal the sides that you cut and again, not the belly. Set it aside again for a couple weeks. After that time has passed, cut closer to your bow dimension lines but leave about 1/8-inch and again, don't cut out the handle, trim a bit off of the belly, reseal the new sides. Set aside another couple of weeks. Sealing the sides after reducing the bow wood seems to allow the moisture to only leave the wood through the belly (unsealed) surface. The idea being sealing those areas prevents the side checks as well as the back checks. After that couple of weeks, I would then attempt to cut out the handle, reduce the belly some more and reseal the handle. Finally, I then further reduce the belly to a floor tillerable bend, seal the entire stave then steam and clamp to a form. I don't have a moisture meter and this slow methodical reduction worked well for me.
-
You're gonna love that locust PD. Built my first bl bow a couple months ago. I had a couple of huge logs that I roughed a couple of staves out of and let them sit for a couple of years in the shop. The sapwood is like osage and will check everywhere if not removed. I've heard some say that if bl isnt seasoned well it will develop frets badly. If you got other wood to work with I would let the locust sit for a year or two.
-
Thanks all, very good info. I have plenty of wood, but no black locust dry enough. I have plenty of it so I may try Matts method on this one. Matt has built 2 or 3 bows so it must work sometimes.....right Matt? You know what Im working on at Martys in January!
okie I plan on letting the rest of the stash stay put for a good while, just a BL hankering took over and Im trynt to feed it!
George I do not have any meters. Most staves are close enough I can tell the minute my ferriers rasp touches it if its good to go or not.
-
My first 2 bows were BL sinew backed from fence posts. And have made a few since then. BL is a cousin to OSAGE I waited about year and a half on one 2 to 5 on others. The year and a half bow turner out nice.
I say taken down and sealed but where it's warm a year would make a bow. Ahot box would be faster. But becarefull if you but it in a hot box. LEAVEING TO LOT WILL MAKE IT BRITTLE.
-
No hot box, but I do keep all my staves indoors where its 70 degrees year round.
-
Pearl, I had one bad experience with borers in BL. Probably the sooner you debark your staves and seal them the better. Love working with BL.
-
I cut my bow building teeth on locust over 20 years ago. I could buy fence rails for about $5 when I started. I probably ruined 50 good BL staves(fence rails) before I gave up on it. A few years ago I went back to give locust a try with better results. I think I had matured as a bowyer by then. ;D
Start out long and wide like you would with whitewood. BL takes well to heat treating also.
The bores that I have noticed on locust attack the live tree. Not the same bug as with osage.
If you get your stave down to floor tiller stage it should dry relatively fast inside your house. It won't be the same wood as well seasoned locust but should make a pretty good bow anyway. I built a locust Eastern Woodland style(donated to the Tenn Classic last year) bow and that style worked very well with locust. Before being forced to Oklahoma the Cherokee preferred locust for their bows.
-
Eric, that rule has no sence.
With kitchen scale we know when our wood is dry.
Pearl, I work a lot with bl. Split it, reduce to near bow dimensions and do not remove bark. If core is in that stave it will probably crack to the core if drying too fast. If core is removed then it is safe to dry, in 99% percents. Slowly, for a month or so you will have dry wood. I dried that way wood for my 125# flatbow, it is totaly OK.
P.S. I think that mulberry is osage's cousin, not locust.
-
I 2nd what Druid says - spot on.
There is no difference between quick dried wood and wood that has been left for years. If it's at the same mc it will react EXACTLY the same. Wood doesn't know that it's been sat around for years....it's inanimate....! Mc level is all that matters. Anyway a log could sit around for 10 years but be in high humidty and still not be dry enough.
-
Mike, I have to disagree with you. I'm sure quick dried wood can make a very good bow but IMO and in my experience quick dried wood is not as stable and is more susceptable to set and possibly fretting.
One good example I have is a 60" osage static recurve I built a few years ago. I bought the stave at the end of May and it was cut May 1 of that year. By the first part of July I had the bow shooting. When I started working the wood it felt dry, sounded and worked like dry wood. After a bit of shooting the bow began to take set and developed a hinge and frets in the hinge. I set the bow aside and a few months later I added a belly lam and fixed the bow.
This is only the 2nd osage bow that I have ever gotten frets on. I know each piece of wood is different and my observations are not scientific but it is good enough for me to wait for the wood to be well dried and seasoned before I build a bow with it.
-
A lot of guys swear by "seasoned" wood. Personally, I like using wood that has been sitting around for years but I've used "car dried" and "hot box" wood and I can't say that I've noticed much difference. But there is a difference.
The difference is this: the bowyer.
Some guys can immediately smell, feel, and know the difference between old wood and new wood, good wine and great wine, premium gas and regular, etc. I can't.
Dry some locust fast and dry the rest slowly. Make bows out of the quickly dried wood first. When you get around to making some bows out of seasoned locust, see if you can tell the difference. Then make your decision.
:)
-
Mike, I have to disagree with you. I'm sure quick dried wood can make a very good bow but IMO and in my experience quick dried wood is not as stable and is more susceptable to set and possibly fretting.
One good example I have is a 60" osage static recurve I built a few years ago. I bought the stave at the end of May and it was cut May 1 of that year. By the first part of July I had the bow shooting. When I started working the wood it felt dry, sounded and worked like dry wood. After a bit of shooting the bow began to take set and developed a hinge and frets in the hinge. I set the bow aside and a few months later I added a belly lam and fixed the bow.
This is only the 2nd osage bow that I have ever gotten frets on. I know each piece of wood is different and my observations are not scientific but it is good enough for me to wait for the wood to be well dried and seasoned before I build a bow with it.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one then. :)
I have never noticed any difference...maybe your osage just wasn't dense enough for your width/design. If a hinge devolps a fret then it was overstrained - hence the hinge! If it started to take set after tillering during shooting then shooting the bow was putting it under more stress than tillering was IMO.
I've made black locust bows from wood cut 2 weeks prior that shot around 175 - 180fps at 10 grains per pound...but it was dry and if anything was going to fret then b.locust would! I stand by the fact that wood is inanimate and doesn't KNOW wether it has been dried for 2 weeks or 10 years it simply reacts to the stresses put on it and the reaction is largely down to the mc. If quick drying damaged wood then timber companies wouldn't use kiln's to dry it.
What do you mean by not as stable?
-
Druid I peeled the bark off and cleaned the back up to one ring. Its heavily sealed again with poly. I must admit Druids methid is attractive to me because of my tendancy to not want to go slow! We shall see what my back looks like in a few weeks. If its not split open by then Im thinking it wont. Thanks for ALL the replies guys, I appreciate it!
-
I have found BL to be pretty well behaved drying naturally. The fact that its not prone to twisting or cracking (my area, anyways) could either explain the woods slow release of moisture or low moisture retention in the wood itself. I've never quick dried BL but have used it pretty quick after harvest without waiting years, but I always do size a stave down over the course of weeks that normally allows that little extra dry time at a lower mass level. And I will always leave the bark on right up to show time.
When I first started building bows I played around a lot with quick drying wood, Hickory in particular, and I could take a stave from harvest to a bow in a matter of weeks. I had a really good hot box that I used in conjunction with a dehumidifier. I would circulate 110 degree air @ about 25% humidity. I was pretty new to bow building back then but they made pretty darn good bows. I have since used out of that same batch of wood and really see no difference. Actually the quick dried stuff worked a little better as the moisture levels were always lower in my humid climate. But there is always that little thought in your mind about what is happening to the wood as it being force dried as opposed to drying naturally (that rapid release thing going on). Its really hard to quantify the end result.
I would rather have naturally seasoned stave to work with but I won't let quick drying a piece of wood slow me down either.
Sorry for being off topic a bit, but moisture always makes for a good discussion.
-
Cool Thread!
Watching and learning.
Thank You Y'all!
-gus
-
Mike, in my experiences I have found bow woods that are not seasoned well will take set more readily and doesn't seem to hold the corrections that were made with heat. For the last 8 or 10 years I've had well seasoned wood readily available so I rarely use freshly cut wood for bows. The reason I made the 60" osage static when I did was because it was an extra piece from a stave I bought to build another bow.(Herb's Bow)
I make hardwood shoot arrows also and I know that I can build a good arrow from a freshly cut shoot in a week or less using under my wood stove as a dryer and tempering oven. Generally an arrow like this will have to be re-straightened occasionally. If I allow the shoot to season for a year or more, the arrow made from it will remain as straight as when I first made it.
One of the cool things about this website is we all do things a little different and use methods that are a bit different so the new guys coming along can glean the info best suited for him(or her) to achieve their goal. There is no right or wrong way of doing things. The guys that got together to compile the TBB series of books challenged time tested rules about building wood bows but were successful with their efforts. After TBBI came out and more and more folks began building wood bows and experimenting on their own. TBBIV was written to change some of the original thoughts about building wood bows(ie. Design and Performance). Why, because more folks experimented and came up with different legitimate results.
Without these debates we'd all be using only premium osage or high altitude yew staves for bows because no other wood is worth the attempt to build a bow...which we all know is a fallacy.
-
When I was a kid down in South Carolina,I worked with my Grandpa who was a Master carpenter. We salvaged wood whenever possible from old buildings that were being torn down. He worked at all kinds of carpentry and was a cabinet maker as well. He taught me alot about wood and working wood on new wood and on old wood. I can tell you that wood that has been around a long time works,feels,smells,takes a finish different than wood that is dried in a kiln. Not saying it is better or worse,just different. Say; lighter wood for instance, longleaf pine . I think wood does more than gain or loose moisture, I think there are chemical changes that occur, maybe down to a molecular level, subtle changes occur. Or not Old wood often planes like butter as opposed to kiln dried that does not. Same species from the same country. I don't claim to know anything except I love old seasoned hardwood
-
I totally agree that wood that isn't seasoned well will take set more readily ;)
Maybe I should make a bow from a stave that was cut yesterday and start another thread ;)
I've also made quite a few shoots arrows and not just trying to be annoying but i've never found any shoot shafts to stay straight forever even when seasoned for a long time, the best i've found have been viburnum shoots, although cane doesn't seem to need re-straightening.
I wholeheartly agree that it's good to debate and have places to do it. I love a good decussion but most of my friends just glaze over when I talk about bows!
Good luck to you Pearl with your b.locust....I wish I had more!
-
I think being both a bowyer and an arrow maker you will have a totally different perspective on wood's working properties. I often mention that you'll learn more about bow wood by first making arrows from the wood . First thing you'll learn is that fresh but dried wood is not the same as seasoned wood. I remember Tim Baker chastising me about mentioning this very subject some years ago. But there's one thing that I am that Tim's not, and thats an arrow maker. And the more arrows (and bows) I make the greater my resolve on this subject.
-
My experience with shoot arrows is totally different than yours Mike. I wait until the shoot is well seasoned then do my final straightening. Stored correctly (vertically) they stay straight year after year. You must be using fresh shoots for you arrow ;D.........Art
-
I have sourwood shoot arrows that are 4 or 5 years old, have been shot hundreds of times and are as straight as they were the day I made them and never had to straighten them after the initial straightening. My cane arrows are not as consistant however the ones Art made for me are consistant, straight and shoot well from my hunting bows.
-
Since its my thread I will allow this hi-jacking you primitive pirates! I will use whatver is dry or seasoned, matters not to me. This is merely food for thought for the seasoned doesnt matter side of the debate. During and after drying does wood not start decomposing? Obviously some varieties faster than others. Perhaps the diff between dried and seaosned is the partially decomposed cells are more compacted or shrunk than the dried only cells? Just food for thought with ZERO background on decomposistion of any woods. I have never worked wood over 2-3 yrs old so I have no clue what seasoned wood even does or acts like under tools.
-
Pearlie, wood will last indefinately if the M/C is such that the wood eaters can't survive.
-
Well then, I 'd like to us my "jump a question" Pat!
-
As a woodworker and furniture maker for a couple of decades I am sort of amused and sort of depressed by the amount of myth, voodoo, and witchcraft I read about wood on the internet. I'd highly recommend two books by R. Bruce Hoadley: Understanding Wood and Identifying Wood. They're a bit on the scientific side, and decidedly non-primitive, but they will have facts to either back up your theories or knock them down.
-
Well footfootfoot what are the facts? I dont wanna buy the book so tell us ;D ;)
Josh
-
Added those books to my "To Read" list... :)
Thank You!
Can you not also speed the curing process by steaming the whole Bow/Stave?
Take it down to bow dimensions and floor tiller, seal it with tung oil, then steam the whole bow?
I've got Black Locust in mind with this question, followed by Osage and Mulberry.
Thank Y'all!
-gus
-
I tell you what fellers. This black locust was cut in October with most of the sap down. I split it and sealed the ends that day. I peeled and sealed the back a few days ago. I have a bow building friends gathering in mid-January. I am going to build a bow form this stave then and I will record what relfex I started with and what I get after shoot in. Plus lost draw weight and early string tension. We shall see what matters and what doesnt on this stave. I am going to do nothing special to dry this stave other than what I have so far. Peel and seal, sit it down in my shop as usual and one momth from now my buddys Mattw, Blackhawk and old timber bows are going to help/watch this thing turn into a bow. I will give a full report in January upon the bows completion. I guess I have built enough now I dont mind experimenting for the better cause. If I lose one I lose one.
-
:D ;) ::)
I tell ya what chris....take a stave down to floor tiller,then shellac the whole stave,steam it into shape,and then make sure the shellac is still sealed,you might have to reseal after steaming,and then stick it in that heating duct ,and keep an eye on it and weigh it once a week recording your numbers,and leave it in there until you leave your house for martys.....and I bet that sucker will be dry by then. That gives ya a month till then. Use shellac n shellac only tho.
Can't wait to see this in person 8)
-
Let me state some findings and nonconclusive results yet here,but ill share with what I have found out so far as to quick drying various types of wood.
Whenever I harvest a species ill take one or two staves and reduce them to floor tiller(bending no more than 6",and def no more than 8")..it seems the 8" mark or around there is when dripping wet green wood starts to take set. I then write that date down onto the piece of wood the day i floor tillered it and ill weigh it immedietly and record its starting weight. Then once a week ill weigh the stave recording that number. Then its just a waiting game of when it stops losing moisture.
Here's a list of the woods I've been experimenting with in quick drying.......all these have been harvested by my own two hands
Osage....yew....black locust...hophornbeam....american hornbeam...hickory...eastern red cedar...elm...rosebay rhododendron....serviceberry...???...I might be forgetting one or two....but here's my point.
Out of all these woods ill start with the slowest
Osage...by a milestone it loses its moisture slower than any other...but it can be quick dried CAREFULLY..and needs to be closely monitered and babied
Hickory....its a dog that loves to slobber and salivate with moisture..lol
HHB and american hornbeam....it seems so dense from its compact grain and small ring structure that it like to hold onto moisture as well...but my record from stump to shooting bow is 36 days with an american hornbeam...and yes it was dry because I heat treated it deeply with no checks.
Serviceberry...not too many comments...just average
Elm....it dries pretty quick when reduced
Rhododendron...its the wettest wood when cut...literally dripping wet...but dries farily quickly and the back should be sealed after debarking
The next are all fairly close and might surprise you
BLACK LOCUST...when the bark and sapwood is removed it'll lose moisture at a very rapid rate..it surprised me big time. But if the bark and sapwood is left on it really holds onto its moisture.
Yew...yup I said it ....yew. it can be quick dried n must be carefully monitored,but if debarked and reduced to floor tiller it loses its moisture fast....so fast it'll want to move in every which way on ya....so if ya don't mind heat corrections then go for it.
Eastern red cedar....enough said there...I believe juniper wood fall into this category as well since its a juniper.
Hope this helps some folks and opens up some discussion ;)
-
Well here you go!
I could spend a few days telling you youngsters the difference between dry wood and seasoned wood but when we were done it really wouldn't make much difference to you !! So I ain't gonna do it!
Bottom line is this Gary Davis cut down a Osage tree and 14 days later he had a finished bow that was as good as most folks only hope to be able to get no matter how they go about it !
That is not to say it was as good of a bow as it would have been if it was seasoned ! Just that it was a fine bow done by a fine Boyer !
The difference in dry vs seasoned wood is an advantage to some folks and a disadvantage to some!
Keep on pressing on for its in the learning that we get the greatest benefits even more so than the benefits of what is learned!
Have fun my friends
Guy
-
Good info Chris. I may add to your numbers after we give this stave a test run. Its narrow at 1 1/2" max, so it will be a 68" bow. I am going to rough it down and reflex as you mentioned. We will have a bow in an hour OR SO at Martys............or we wont! This thread turned out to be much better than I imagined it would. My simpe questions just wrote volume 5 of TBB!!
-
I agree I have enjoyed following allong with this thread! Great info from different perspectives!
Josh
-
This has been fun reading this, but I have to go along with Pat and Pappy. I've been gifted with some fine osage staves and roughed out bows that are old, black and seasoned. And to me there is a big difference working the wood and a tiller that doesn't suprise you or change and less set. I'll be posting one in a few days that was a Gary Davis blank from 1995. I was hoping triple foot would tell us what the book says so we don't have to buy it. :)
-
Other than osage or yew...I think that most whitewoods actually benefit better from being reduced asap and getting the moisture out of them asap. Those woods don't have the rot resisting chemicals that osage and yew have. The sooner you get the fungi eating moisture out of it the better....why do you think the ole timers said whitewoods were crap....prob cus they seasoned them like osage and yew. Ill take a piece of whitewood that's only a month old,but down to 8% mc any day over a piece that the bark was left on and left to season like osage. I don't think there's a difference between a two year old HHB stave to a month old stave that are both at 8%mc. That wood doesn't know it s moisture was reduced a month or 5 years.
Yes osage n yew can be rushed and made into a bow....but my preference is seasoned wood as well with those woods. It seems like the oils in them also need to dry out as well as the moisture and those oils prevent it from seasoning quickly. And seasoned osage seems to be more bend resistant,and more low set,which leads to a lil more early draw tension in the bows performance. I have several staves from three diff trees that are 15-20 years old,and all made killer awesome low set early tension draw bows. But again I think a lot of whitewoods actually benefit from being more quick dried.
-
Hey chris....im already a few weeks ahead of ya...I've had a floor tillered black locust stave in my heating duct since Nov. 21...lol :laugh:....now I tell ya..hehehe ;).
-
This may sound strange but I'm kinda thinking along the lines I did when I was building fibreglass trucks and surfboards. When I was building boards I could lighten the weight by using less MEK and not cutting the resin with Styrene and really slow it down by using no Cobalt. All uses a lot of heat to speed the curing process up, but it made the glass real brittle. Even in combinations it changes the degree of strength in the glass.
JMO I think letting certain woods cure naturally helps the resins solidifie slowly and make the wood stronger instead of cooking it fast.
-
Well footfootfoot what are the facts? I dont wanna buy the book so tell us ;D ;)
Josh
Facts? Let's don't get carried away. There are no facts only Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. :laugh:
Seriously, the book is 254 pages, the chapter on water and wood is 20 pages. I bet it can be found used online or gotten through interlibrary loan.
There is so much information I wouldn't know where to start.
I know next to nothing about bowyering so at this point I'm gonna shut up and listen for a while.
-
Ok fine ;D, Well if you hang out on this site long enough you will know allot!
Josh
-
Here you go Guy.