Seasoned vs. dried white wood is there a difference?

[Black Moshannon]

I hear this come up from time to time and have debated this a little with my bow making friend. From my understanding white wood can be cut, reduced, and then dried to a low MC and make the finest bow the wood is capable of making within a week or two. I also know other woods like locust or Osage require a long period of time to let the resins harden and dry out in the wood. But lately I’ve been hearing it mentioned that there is a difference between drying and seasoning, and that this could affect the quality of the finished bow... is there any truth to this?

 So say I have a hickory stave and let it sit around for a year in my dry room; Or I take that same stave, reduce it to floor tiller, let it air dry for two weeks and then put it in my dryer getting it down near 6%, then heat treat... which is what I’ve been doing... will this be inferior to the first method? From what I read in the Bowyers Bibles quick dry is no lesser of a method and may be better... but maybe I misinterpreted that...

[PatM]

An endless debate.  A quick dried bow can be excellent and a long cured stave maybe a hair better.  Of course a quick dried stave also cures more over time.

  White woods shrink with moisture cycling through the seasons and years  but they kind of need to be left open and unsealed for that to happen.

[Black Moshannon]

So the key thing is the shrinking of the cells then, when the bow is slow dried? And how would a heat treat affect this because from what I know the cells lose oxygen when the heat treat is applied..

[stuckinthemud]

I have been questioning my knowledge on this, and here is what I was taught a hugely long time ago and have probably twisted in my mind ever since.  My memory says that there is a difference between the moisture a tree uses and water.  The moisture the tree uses needs to be replaced by water and/or air - this is seasoning.  In some trees, like pines, this may not happen for decades - check knots oozing sap in pine frames.  The reason I say this is because of the practice of submerging logs in lakes and mill-ponds to season - the sap is eventually displaced by the water, the log is then dries and is much less likely to check as it dries as the water already has less volume than the sap it replaced.  Now to free and bound water - free water is the water in cells and between cells, it is easy to remove and can give the impression the wood is seasoned, however, the bound water that is tied up in the cell walls is still present and takes much longer to dry out.  Wood is not fully seasoned until that moisture is also removed but because that takes a long time, you can think wood is seasoned when it is not.  To me it seems I believe 2 different theories but they end up with the same net result - you can think wood is fully dried out when it ain't.

I will be very happy if someone can untangle my twisted mind!!

[scp]

Good question. As we are dealing with an organic material, the answer would be quite complex or even indeterminate. Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_drying We need to narrow the question down to our specific purpose. Are we trying to see which way of drying would result in a better bow material? If so what would be the better bow material? What do we want from drying a certain piece of wood properly? More tensile strength? More compressive strength? Less weight for volume? More hardness? More flexibility. A lot would depend on wood species and worse yet on the specific stave. We need to know what we want from our bow staves in general and what we want from a particular piece of wood at hand.

Assuming that we mainly want to increase the compressive strength of the stave without reducing its tensile strength too much while making it as light as possible, the best option would be taking the stave to the equilibrium moisture content relatively slowly and then heat treat the belly.

[Yooper Bowyer]

You probably saw my post about the HHB D bow.  I read from Marc St. Louis that wood can be quickly dried and made into a good bow, but it takes longer for the resins on the wood to harden, and this is what he called seasoning.  He said heat tempering helps the process.

I really hope that my stave is ready, but could it be that HHB is an exception to the fast drying rule?  If so, why?

@ stuckinthemud:

Now to free and bound water - free water is the water in cells and between cells, it is easy to remove and can give the impression the wood is seasoned, however, the bound water that is tied up in the cell walls is still present and takes much longer to dry out.

  I think that if water can escape cells through the cell walls, shouldn't the water in the cell walls be able to escape as well? 

@ scp:

Assuming that we mainly want to increase the compressive strength of the stave without reducing its tensile strength too much while making it as light as possible, the best option would be taking the stave to the equilibrium moisture content relatively slowly and then heat treat the belly.

   Why slowly so long as it gets to equilibrium?

Thanks,

[HH~]

Only quick dried by reducing stave slowly or Sapling bow is elm. Quick dry elm small dia Saplings make great shooters.

No question seasoned Hedge will out perform just dry . Take sister staves put one up for four years and take other build a bow quick like. Then the debate ends there. With different woods of the world you may have some wiggle gray area.

HH~

[stuckinthemud]

tradcraftsman - yes, but it is tied ('bound') into the structure of the cell wall and cannot move freely, it does eventually move, but it is a long slow drawn out process whereas the free water is not tied into a cell structure but fills all the voids in the wood and so can relatively easily move through it - in fact wood is designed to get the free moisture to travel through it as easily as possible , for example from the roots to the leaves

[Pat B]

In my opinion the difference between dry and seasoned wood it stability. The seasoned stave is less apt to twist or warp than a just dry stave and/or as a bow later. Eventually all wood will season, given time so even a dried piece of wood will become more stable.
 A few years back, Charlie Jefferson(RIP Charlie) got into making poplar arrow shafts. Most of the wood he used had been stickered for 2 years before he cut the blanks and made the shafts. These were exceptional shafts. He made a few with only dry wood and most of them moved so much they were unusable for shafts. I've seen the same thing happen to bow staves that were dry but not seasoned. Dry wood, especially dry whitewood will make a good bow but, IMO, seasoned staves make better bows.
 Most folks, especially the new guys just want to build a bow and I don't blame them for that. If, when you cut bow wood, get as many staves as you can handle. This way you will have a few staves to work with as dry wood but in a few years you will have seasoned wood. Then you will then see the difference.

[bassman]

Though I make most of my bows green ,and put on forms I agree with Pat B.  Oct 5th I split ,and made 6 Hickory bows finished by Nov 20. Never stopped working on them in different stages 8 to 10 hrs a day. I put some in a hot box, and belly heat treated, and some I fire hardened. The fire hardened bows were more stable, and held more reflex in the end though they all turned out with some reflex , or were at least straight. As I believe in what Pat B has said about seasoned wood, I also believe in Keith Shannon's method of fire hardening after trying it out, and his method was easier ,and took less time from begining to end, and turned out better bows.JMO

[Black Moshannon]

You probably saw my post about the HHB D bow.  I read from Marc St. Louis that wood can be quickly dried and made into a good bow, but it takes longer for the resins on the wood to harden, and this is what he called seasoning.  He said heat tempering helps the process.

I really hope that my stave is ready, but could it be that HHB is an exception to the fast drying rule?  If so, why?

@ stuckinthemud:

Now to free and bound water - free water is the water in cells and between cells, it is easy to remove and can give the impression the wood is seasoned, however, the bound water that is tied up in the cell walls is still present and takes much longer to dry out.

  I think that if water can escape cells through the cell walls, shouldn't the water in the cell walls be able to escape as well? 

@ scp:

Assuming that we mainly want to increase the compressive strength of the stave without reducing its tensile strength too much while making it as light as possible, the best option would be taking the stave to the equilibrium moisture content relatively slowly and then heat treat the belly.

   Why slowly so long as it gets to equilibrium?

Thanks,

I did see your post on HHb among some others. Luckily I am now accumulating a lot more wood that is getting older and I can see if there will be a difference in a seasoned stave. Some of it is Elm and if what HedgeHunter is saying about Elm is true than the long season didn’t make a difference. The rest is hickory and I’m wondering if that will need a longer dry time. Latest hickory bow will have been finished in about two months.

[bradsmith2010]

I think there is a difference,, just hard to measure it,,

[Yooper Bowyer]

I also believe in Keith Shannon's method of fire hardening after trying it out, and his method was easier ,and took less time from begining to end, and turned out better bows.

How is this different than heat tempering a belly with coals?

[bassman]

It is heat tempering the belly with coals, but before that it is  drying the bow out in a tent with coals. He makes a green cut Hickory ,Oak, and sweet gum sapling from start  to finish bow in three days. Check him out on utube.

[Yooper Bowyer]

So like a primitive hot box?

Could you do that with a space heater in a small room or in a curtained area?