Heat treating trade offs

[jeffp51]

In my experience, nothing comes for free and everything in life is a compromise.  I will accept that heat treating is beneficial to many woods, and it ups the draw weight and improves compression-weak wood.  But what do you trade to get it?  Does the stave become more brittle and prone to breaking?

[adams89]

the brown color, sometimes.
As for anything else there's no trade off, except you overdo it, of course then the wood gets more brittle.
I think heat treating has done very very much for every serious bowyer, it really turns some bad staves into rocketlaunchers, especially osage  and elm etc........ It saved many of my bows from to much set  or little developing hinges etc..
And the best part is the loss of mass ( after retillering) and increase in drawweight, I mean that is my definition of the coolest thing you can do to a bow!!

hope it helps

[bradsmith2010]

if you are not experienced or patient,, you can ruin your bow,, that is the main trade off,, trying to make a bow" better" is sometimes the enemy

[huisme]

Like they said, color and the possibility of ruining the bow if you do it wrong. I burnt one to a crisp the first time I used coals.

[Springbuck]

  The main issue I have with it is how, as a busy dad with multiple jobs and ADHD, I ruin far too many promising bows by getting distracted and overcooking them (to a crisp) during the process.  I use a hotplate and forms, and if I forget to set the timer, she's firewood.

[mikekeswick]

There are none! 

[jeffp51]

So as long as it isn't overcooked, it's all positives?  that is a rare occurrence, I would say.  What happens if you scrape off the darkened wood?  does the benefit remain in what is left, assuming that the heat was applied slow enough that the effects aren't just on the surface?

[SLIMBOB]

Agree with mike. Barring operator error, no down side.

[sleek]

the brown color, sometimes.
As for anything else there's no trade off, except you overdo it, of course then the wood gets more brittle.
I think heat treating has done very very much for every serious bowyer, it really turns some bad staves into rocketlaunchers, especially osage  and elm etc........ It saved many of my bows from to much set  or little developing hinges etc..
And the best part is the loss of mass ( after retillering) and increase in drawweight, I mean that is my definition of the coolest thing you can do to a bow!!

hope it helps

Did you just call osage and elm bad staves? Ohhhh boy your gonna get it now!
Honestly,  osage responds to heat bending but not so much to tempering. It does but not like elm. Elm is good anyway but man alive it can become twice as strong with a good belly temper.

[Eric Garza]

The other cost of heat treating is the additional resources (including time) required to do it. It's been my experience that without a solid form, the bow will warp. Without a way of producing gentle, flame-less heat, it's too easy to scorch the stave. So you need additional stuff to heat treat, along with the time. But if you have that stuff and can afford to invest the time to do it right, then heat treating seems to have no drawbacks that I've found.

[sleek]

Well, you do need to let the wood dehydrate. I have broken a bow afterwards from bracing it after a heat treat.

[Eric Garza]

I guess I figured that was part of the time investment that goes along with heat treating.

[adams89]

don't get me wrong i mean if you have a bad stave of that woodtype.

[Drewster]

Well, you do need to let the wood dehydrate. I have broken a bow afterwards from bracing it after a heat treat.

Sleek, you mean "rehydrate"?

[sleek]

Pay attention to what I meant to say, not what I said. Lol.