Heat box questions

[hicklife1989]

Hello  getting closer to start building a bow go in to harvest some trees next couple of days just have a question I know that staves should dry a year or more but I have read some info about using a heat box to dry little faster if this is possible would it warp the wood drying to fast?

[Bayou Ben]

Depends on the wood, but normally yes it would warp and check badly if you put it right in the hot box.  Best to let it drop to around 20% MC before trying to speed dry the wood.  This can be done in a few months with a split stave that isn't too big.  Cut it, split it, seal the ends and possibly the back, and put it in a cool shady not super dry place.  After it gets to around 20% you can safely speed dry to 8-10%.  Strapping it to something straight or weighing it down wouldn't hurt either to help reduce warping in that initial stage.
 
 **Added note: this is with white woods.  I never cut osage, but I believe they treat it a little different

[Eric Krewson]

I don't know what kind of wood you will be cutting, my experience with osage is that is doesn't respond well to speed drying. If I let it get below 16% it would do OK.

[Pat B]

All hickories are basically the same, even pecan which is a hickory. White oak does make a good bow.
 Where in SC are you?

[Springbuck]

For any wood I know of, the dogma about drying a stave for a year is basically a myth.   IN fact, most elm, plum, maple, or mulberry I keep for a year gets tossed out because the bugs drill it full of holes. 

  The REAL key is to dry the wood without damaging it.  MY favorite way to do that, with just about any wood, is to reduce the logs to staves, and sometimes reduce those staves to blanks, basically roughed out bows.  You can do this with about any wood quickly while it is green.  Then most woods need to be sealed like with glue or varnish, and restrained by being clamped to a board, tied down, or strapped together with another stave, etc. 

If the dimensions are small, most woods can dry properly in weeks not years.  Some woods like osage and black locust really want to split and should be dried in a cool place at first, well sealed.  The hotbox is a good way to finish off the process.

[Pat B]

lots of staves, and work in that tree. 

[Badger]

  I just finished a hickory bow this morning that was cut about 1 month ago, BowEd knows exactly when it was cut. I roughed it out green and set it up high in the room where it was warmest. No twisting or checking came out great.

[BowEd]

hicklife......When you get that 6' log or more from that tree.Split it into staves.Pop the bark off on all of them.As soon as the surface is dry enough put a sealer on back and ends[Usually within an hour or two].I use shellack.Reduce them farther if you want.I usually reduce a stave 1.5" deep by 2" wide.During this process do not let that virgin cut hickory rest as a log on the ground anywhere and after splitting into staves for very long at all.I put my staves up on a rack inside a shed with a date written on them when they were cut.

These 12 staves were made into 20 staves 1.5" deep by 2" wide.The log you pictured will yield more staves than that.Looks like my pig nut hickory here by the looks of the bark but it seems that most all hickory will yield a good bow.

[Springbuck]

  Wow, that's a pretty big tree.   

[Morgan]

Hicklife, that is a fine tree to start with. If there ain’t two 6’ logs make sure to cut and split the remaining trunk from the first 6’ to be cut into billets.

[Badger]

    Ed, that piece of hickory you sent me was a nice one and made a good bow. But I have never seen a stave dull my scraper as fast as that piece of hickory, well once I had a persimmon stage that was a bit worse on tools. I had to sharpen my scraper about every 5 minutes of use.

[Strichev]

You can split some pretty narrow staves using a froe and a brake. I've had great success using that method as it greatly reduces wasted wood from the split wandering off.

[Eric Krewson]

I am a fan of shellac, many like wood glue but I find shellac is very easy to remove opposed to wood glue. Paint the backs and ends, I paint a couple inches down the stave from the end cut as well, the rest doesn't matter.