Primitive Archer

Interesting discussion.  Heat treating or fire hardening is essentially the same thing.   It transforms the cells containing the lignins and pectins in the wood and hardens them.  Ive done a lot of testing on various white woods including bamboo.  I’ve only done heat treatment to a mild degree on Osage as others have mentioned already. I did see improvements performance wise in Osage too.  With hickory I noticed that the belly wood actually compresses a tiny bit and shrinks when a deeper heat treatment is done.  Meaning browning through the thickness of the limb.  I’ve noticed this same result with elm and ironwood.  The heat treatment also makes the wood more hydrophobic meaning it takes on or retains less moisture.  This is also a great benefit for woods like hickory.   Bamboo on the other hand expands slightly when heat treatment is done till browning occurs.  I also hear a hissing when treating bamboo.  I always need to re flatten the belly before glue up due to this occurring if used for a laminate bow.   Yew is another species that cannot tolerate the heat like white woods can.  Erc and junipers would be similar for heat tolerance.  Especially dry.  Any time I’ve had to do more then minor corrections in these woods specifically I use steam.  It’s safer.  I’ll sometimes use oil on yew now and then too. 

I did a doe hide with eggs and acorn broth (for the tannins). I did just the flesh side. Took a lot of scraping and breaking and working, but turned soft. It did mold a bit, but it scraped off. The hair is just now starting to shed a little. That was a decade or so ago that I made it.

  Excellent job, you used very good judgment in not overly reflexing the bow. That has always been my biggest mistake and I pay for it every time.

Appreciate it man, I always try to err on the side of caution in most cases as good bow making timber is elusive or expensive here it seems. Plus I'd rather have a good performing bow rather than a great pile of firewood haha

Finished heating the rest of the limb. Sprung back a decent amount but the shape is still pretty good. Bending the second recurve went much better! Changed where the steam was hitting the limb and it bent very easily. The shape is pretty even along both limbs. They each have a slight amount of twist that will need to be taken out. The wedge shape of the billets doesn't leave enough for the handle so I had to plane it down to glue on some material. The chatoyance of the quartersawn edge is gorgeous. We're expecting close to 10" here in Michigan. Working during the snow always reminds me of the MartyJam get together with the Michigan guys.

I have some ocean spray but haven’t built one yet, so I’m waiting to see how your bow turns out.    I you have a nice size stave, which is hard to find.