Advice needed on starting a naturally highly reflexed VM stave. (W/pics.)

[Gordon]

Rick, proceed like you would with any other stave, but go slow and exercise well between wood removal. The wood cells will eventually relax and you should end up with a bow with between 1-2" of reflex.

[Gordon]

One more thing. When the stave does give up it's tension induced reflex, it will happen almost all at once. Go slow!

[Ryano]

Well I guess you should know Gordon, but the piece I worked with last winter seemed to heat bend pretty well for me.   Although I wasn't really trying to remove reflex, just evening things up a bit.

[El Destructo]

I heated the last ones I built to line up the Tips...and also to pull some of the Tension induced reflex out of it...and it seemed to bend just fine too....no checks....no splinters lifted...seemed to bend like any other whitewood to me...in fact the Guy I bought the 4 staves from....Curt Brisky.... told me to use Heat to align the Tips..wet heat on two that were a month old...and dry on the two seasoned ones...

[Gordon]

Sorry I did not make myself clear. Vine maple can certainly be bent using heat. I do it all the time. What does not work particularly well is trying to heat out tension induced reflex on such a highly reflexed stave. It will eventually return to it's pre-heated state or close to it. Once the tension is worked out of the stave, however, you can easily bend the wood to do whatever you like. At least that has been my experience.

[El Destructo]

                                                Thanks Gordon.......I understand now.........

[sonny]

what tool do you use when working vine maple ??
I've tried scraping with a drawknife and a spokeshave, neither of which work very well,,for me anyhow.
I reckon I just need to break out the farrier's rasp......
   

[Flashman]

I completely agree with Gordon.  VM is my primary wood.  I have made bows (not that many altogether) from filbert, yew and hickory but have found VM the most challenging and the one I make the most mistakes.  However, they tend to have good cast, have real character, and, lastly, maybe most importantly, is the price:  free.

[Gordon]

Sonny, the best tool I've found for vine maple is a microplane file. I use both the course and fine blades. It's almost impossible to scrape vine maple as it has so many grain swirls.

[brian melton]

I would steam the center (handle area) to make it more of a reflex/deflex type of bow my .02....

Brian

[ricktrojanowski]

Sonny
To work  VM I use a Torges scraper (chair scraper).  If you keep it really sharp and mess with the angle of the burr it works really well.   On really swirlly grained spots I first rough the spot lightly with a Nicholson rasp then scrape.

[El Destructo]

The Best Tool that I have found for Vine Maple is a Stanley Surform...it don't care what the Grain looks like...it just wants to cut...or like Gordon stated....a Microplane Rasp...they will both do the Trick on Vine Maple....or any Wood with swirly Grain