I have a question

[mattbowen]

I am building my first bow out of red oak and I have read that it is a good idea to lightly burn the limbs on the belly to strengthen them. I am wondering if the wood actually needs to be burned or just heated?

Thanks

Matt   

[Weylin]

Sounds like you would benefit from reading Marc St. Louis's write up on heat treating. It has all the info that you will need to do it safely and effectively. I'd definitely stay away from the idea of 'burning' your wood, that will get you down a dangerous path. I can't remember off hand which bowyer's bible the article is in, and maybe there's a one on this site too. Someone will come along soon and point you to where it is.

[PEARL DRUMS]

No burning, just darkening. On red oak you can start by holding your heat gun on high about 3-4" from the belly of the bow. It willl take 60 seconds or so to start seeing a change. When it startes to darken nicely move the gun about 1" down the limband start again.

[Pat B]

Marc St. Louis' chapter on heat treating is in TBIV.

[mattbowen]

Thanks to all of you for your reply. I will have to read some more, I sure don't want to mess things up. PEARL DRUMS I will remember that.

Thanks again

[ionicmuffin]

i agree that red oak could use belly heat treat, what pearl said is the way to go.

[autologus]

Red Oak smells good when heat treated too, I just recently got through heat treating my red oak board trade bow and it made the shop smell nice.

Grady

[DarkSoul]

With your first few bows, I would personally discourage you to heat treat the wood. Although you can improve the compression strength of the wood by heat treating the belly, I believe it's not beneficial in your first few attempts. Focus on getting a shootable bow, rather than a perfectly heat treated stick that might break due to some dumb error. Heat treating just adds another thing that could potentially go wrong. Keep it simple stupid on your first few bows and put your time in proper wood selection and tillering.

[blackhawk]

With your first few bows, I would personally discourage you to heat treat the wood. Although you can improve the compression strength of the wood by heat treating the belly, I believe it's not beneficial in your first few attempts. Focus on getting a shootable bow, rather than a perfectly heat treated stick that might break due to some dumb error. Heat treating just adds another thing that could potentially go wrong. Keep it simple stupid on your first few bows and put your time in proper wood selection and tillering.

+1

Don't worry about that....just worry about proper grain selection,design,and tillering

[mattbowen]

Thanks again to all. DarkSoul and blackhawk , I try to always use the KISS system and you make alot of sense and I will take you advice.

Thanks again

Matt

[Weylin]

I think there's a tendency to go a little crazy on your first bow when you start learning about techniques as you go along. (I know I did) You start making a perfectly reasonable flat bow and then you're like, "Ooh, heat treating, I should do that; wow, recurves look good, I want some of them; sinew? why not?; R/D/R/D, that's what I need...etc"  It's as if you think you might never make another bow again and you want everything on this one, or that all these are performance enhancing techniques with no trade offs or drawbacks that can be slapped on any bow to improve them. I'm not accusing you of this, it just struck me that this was a tendency. I think you're wise to heed Darsoul's advice and keep it simple at first. A long, straight, untreated flatbow is a fine and dangerous weapon that doesn't need anything to improve it.