Dry heat and steam?

[bowsandroses]

Dry heating to bend bows is new to me but in an earlier post I was told dry wood dry heat. Green wood steam. This made good sense to me like ah ha! moment type sense. So far from what I've done which is not much this seems to work well. Now for my question I've noticed it seems like I see people heating the belly side of the bow when reflexing. In my wood expereince heat shrinks the wood fiber where steam swells the wood fiber. Consiquently when I steam I work from the long side of the bend and dry heat on the inside of the bend. That way I'm not working against the naturale effects of the kind of heat I'm using. Is this correct or do you think it matters at all?
Please excuse the length of this post but one more thing

I have noticed talk of working the stave down some and then putting it away to dry a couple more weeks, then repeating the process until the bow is finished. Is this correct? Does it work with all wood? Does it speed cure time? does it have an adverse effect? O.K. crap thats alot of qestions sorry Just down to my last to cured staves in whitch both are spoken for and I want to put out two more bows by summer at minimum(wife and Dad need new bows I think)

Thanks Hugh.

[Pat B]

Hugh, if the stave is well cured you can build a bow from beginning to end with no worries.
   When folks are trying to speed up the drying process they will reduce the stave to almost bow shape and let it dry more then work a little and let it dry more. As long as you don't stress the limbs until they are dry you shouldn't have any problems doing it this way.
  You do not want to scorch the back of the bow at all. I heat only from the belly or sides in some cases. I also clamp the stave to a form, belly up and heat and clamp out each limb. I then go back over and reheat the whole limb. After a good heat trating or after bending recurves or adding reflex I like to give the bow at least 3 days before stressing it. The heat treating dehydrates the wood so I want it to rehydrate some before I stress the bow.
 

[bowsandroses]

Thanks Pat! rehydrating does make sense. Do you know if my dry Central Oregon climate is sufficient enough to do that O.K.?

[Pat B]

Keenan lives in Bend. He would be a better one to answer that.