Grrr...

[Ippus]

Riddle me this, Ladies and Gents:
Is there any way to salvage a branch that looked pretty good with the bark on, but turns out to have like 180+ degrees of twist over 6 ft?

Answer: Walking stick?

I will say that trying to split a corkscrew was an interesting experience.

The city arborist was nice enough to give permission to take a few shoots from some very old lilacs in one of the parks near here; they're like 20 ft tall and really overgrown, so I thought I could find a few straight ones in the shady places, which sort of worked. TBB IV has some positive things to say about lilac, so I thought I'd scored bigtime. Alas...

[bowandarrow473]

you might be able to steam it out but it would be a heck of alot of work.

[Ippus]

I have some shorter staves I was going to make into kid bows, a couple of which have a little twist... can you recommend some good resources for info on steaming/heat-straightening?

[bradsmith2010]

steam some of the twist out and make a bow,, you have nothing to loose,, if you can get it to stay strung,, even with some twist it will shoot well,,

[bowandarrow473]

I'm sure there's a thread on steaming and heating but what I do is, I rough the bow out to near bow deminsions and then I put  it in the steam for 30-45 minutes. For heating, I make a big fire and then let it burn down to coals, then I move some of the coals around so I can do localized heating on the limb or reflex/ deflex area.

[Del the cat]

I have some shorter staves I was going to make into kid bows, a couple of which have a little twist... can you recommend some good resources for info on steaming/heat-straightening?

There's quite a lot on my blog (Bowyers Diary):-
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/removing-twist-from-yew-primitive.html
And I recently did a youtube video mind i'm doing a steam bend over a short area, but it's still interesting-ish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCuXa95ffYI
Del

[Ippus]

Thanks, everyone. Del, I'm liking what I see on the blog... at least now I have an idea how that would work. I'll have to figure out a clamping system eventually and give the steam-straightening a try, but for now I think I'm going to "let the wood cure slowly" and wait until I have a little more experience before I give that a shot.

[lebhuntfish]

You have received good advice so far. But here is my 2 cents. I think you said it was pretty green. If so you could clamp it on a board and probably take a good amount of twist out by adjusting the clamps every day or so. I have done this with a pretty twisted Osage stave that was fresh cut. I found you can really crank on it to. I pretty much destroyed a pine 2x4 doing this. When I was not able to get anymore twist out I just stood it in the corner for about 6 months. It only needed a little heat bending to finish the bow out. Oh and the 2x4 ended up twisted when I was done. It started out as an experiment, but I will do it again for sure when the time comes!
Patrick

[ccase39]

I'm sure there's a thread on steaming and heating but what I do is, I rough the bow out to near bow deminsions and then I put  it in the steam for 30-45 minutes. For heating, I make a big fire and then let it burn down to coals, then I move some of the coals around so I can do localized heating on the limb or reflex/ deflex area.

As an alternitive to steaming I was told by a Native American that his ancestors would sometimes bury the bow and build a fire on top of it. I am not sure at what stage they would do this though. Has anyone heard of this?

[bowandarrow473]

Probably when it was freshly cut as the evaporating water would create a type of steaming effect, I'm guessing here but I think it makes sense.

[Drewster]

It would certainly seem reasonable that you could bury a stave in a shallow trench, build a fire on top and effectively steam it with the moisture in the ground and the moisture in a wet stave.  I've cooked corn in a similar manner.

And I agree with Patrick.  I would not wait another day for the stave to dry before trying to straighten it as much as possible by clamping it to a form or caul.  If it has dried for a couple of weeks, I would steam it and then clamp it to a form.  Go for it!

[Wooden Spring]

Mill the back flat and back it!