Primitive Archer

I went mushroom hunting again yesterday, I found a bushel basket of oysters in places I don't normally look for them but I was about a week or two late, they had all started to turn to mush.

We have 5 more days of deer season, I have killed 2 deer, modern stuff, I carried my flintlock most of the time but got skunked so I went modern to put some meat in the freezer. I decided to wrap it up for the year, shoot and clean my B/P guns and put up the mountain of clothes and stuff I keep out to hunt with.

I have 3 trail cameras out on my neighbor's place, I never used trail cameras where I hunt until the last couple of years when old age caused my mobility to decline. I have another one on my food plot that I plant below the house on my land, I didn't get any daylight pictures at all until yesterday, a little spike walked across the plot and posed for a picture.

I started pulling cameras yesterday. Even though I am not hunting anymore I think I found a good creek crossing close to a blind I built in the hollow below the house. I moved one camera down there just to see what uses the crossing for next year.

My deer drag-a-matic 2000 ate up the soft metal gears and quit working. I did get a buck out of a bad place and back to the truck with it this year before it gave up the ghost. I think a little grease on the gears would have prevented its demise.

Behold! The future deer drag-a-matic 3500 with bigger and tougher gears. I will replace the strap with 100 ft of mule tape and add a bracket to strap it to a tree. I won't use the hand crank and will run it with my cordless drill.

Really glad this site is back.
I don't post much, but I enjoy coming here and reading, it feels so much like home.

If you debark a stave and seal the back with TB or other similar products that penetrate the wood, does that inhibit the deepness of the stain color? If the answer is YES, then what other type of sealer can be used so that the stain penetrates deeper. Or what can be done to remove the coating so that the stain will be a deeper color?

Also, if oil is used on the belly to add backset or flip the tips, etc, does that inhibit the  deepness of the stain color? If the answer is YES, what can be done to remove the oil?
 
What I have tried for removal is to dampen the wood with water, then slightly heat the stave (oil floats on water and TB will soften) and use a paper towel or rag to wipe off the oil and TB.

A compound such as Titebond or another penetrating wood sealer penetrates the wood fibers and creates a protective layer, which can stop stains from thoroughly penetrating the wood. The sealer basically prevents the stain from penetrating as deeply as it would on wood that hasn't been treated.

Keep the tips wide, and start to floor tiller the limbs, so you get about 4-6" of travel. It should reach ambient moisture content quite quickly. Check it after a couple of weeks. You can correct the reflex without a really deep heat treat, with a heat gun, it still should perform really well.
If it's starting to take more set than you like during tillering, you can put it back on the form and give it a really long toasting session. After a good even heating you then try for an evenly toasted belly, darkened look(though not charred). That would absolutely maximise the stave's performance.

There are plenty of good videos about fire tempering white wood bows in 24hrs. Clay Hayes has done some which from memory were pretty good.
Its a little riskier than using a heat gun. Never tried it myself, but by all accounts, if done properly works like a dream for whitewood bows. Hopefully some other guys that do it regularly will chime in for some more in depth help.

Looking forward to seeing your results.

About 10% of the nock to nock length is a good starting point for brace. From there you can work up and down as needed.

Kyle