Boiling bow blanks

[gutpile]

that set up I mentioned works very well, especially for roughed out full length bows, on my perry reflex design I put deflex in handle areas, that is why I glue on a handle... good luck brother.. look forward to your projects..by the way my osage wasn't green. I've heard and may be corrected is on green wood steam or boil is ok.. on dry wood dry heat is better.. I have boiled and steamed dry wood before with no checking issues.... gut

[Selfbowman]

You need to know or find a plumber , pipe fitter that probably has scrap pipe. Tell him your need . If he smiles it will probably be made for you. That’s how I would get one.  6” iron pipe with end caps 6’ long cut in half will yield two boiling pots. Arvin

[darinputman]

That is a good idea Arvin.

[bentstick54]

If you are going to pre-clamp it to your caul, 6” pipe may not be big enough to allow for the caul and clamps. If cut in half will only give you3” at deepest part. Then you have to worry about how much evaporation you would have during the process.

[Eric Krewson]

As far as damaging wood by heating it; I worked in a coal fired power plant, the building heat manifold outside my office had a steam supply of 600LB pressure and no telling how hot, 1000 degrees perhaps.

On midnight shift when no one was around I would take my full length bending caul and steam tube into work with me. I would run a line off the drain on the manifold into my steam tube and let her rip. 

I steam straightened a number of osage staves with this method, never had any checking or damage to the staves. I would give them a steam bath of about 30 minutes before I clamped them to the caul. Of course I wasn't using 1000 degree steam by the time it traveled the length of my steam tube but it far hotter than boiling water, it was invisible steam at the temperature it was at, no water vapor.

I made some fine bows from those staves, this was 25 years ago, I bet all the bows I made from these superheated staves are still shooting.

[darinputman]

Yeah bentstick you got a good point.
   Eric the staves still have a little moisture to drop before I start on them so maybe I will have what I need to boil them in by then.
   I had hope that someone here had tried boiling a blank but it looks like I'll be going it just based on what I learned from bending tips. I look forward to trying something new.
   Never know may have to come out with a boiling osage for selfbow dvd. Relax fellows just kidding.

[bownarra]

I think that it could be a very good point to it especially if a person was to clamp it to a caul before boiling the wood. Boiling caul and all, same way when heating over coals using the fire hardening process,  getting heat all the way through the stave without scorching the back. I don't think it would be a problem to make a correction and put back in if necessary. It seems to me that once osage gets hot in water that the wood still bends even though it aint hot as I think it should be. Being able to make several corrections while it is in this state is what I'm after.
    Thanks for the comments. I do plan on trying this as soon as I can find a container about 6' long anybody got any suggestions on what to make one out of to try this cheaply, that would also hold up to a fire.

What sort of form are you going to make that withstand being boiled!!!!
You can do everything you say by using a normal form and a heat gun   Much easier and will give better results. I certainly wouldn't be boiling a full stave, also that is some fire you are going to have to make to boil all that water.....I know how much heat/energy it needs to boil a pan with hornbow cores in....honestly I wouldn't waste my time with all this - no advantage and lots of extra work

[darinputman]

Bownarra, I get it you think its a waste of time. I do appreciate your comments. But with that being said I don't know if there will be any advantages or not. I am yet to hear from anyone thats tried it. Also I plan on boiling bow blanks, sorry I stated staves at first but modified title to read blanks.
    I don't know how high of a boil you have to bring your blanks to to for bending curves, but its not a roaring boil for me. This winter I was working on a blank, came time to put curves in it and thought I'd try out the kerosene heater for my heatsource. I put about a 11/2 gallon pot of water on the heater and thought it probably will never get to boiling. It never acheived much over what I'd call a simmer, but after about 45 minutes of simmering osage it bent fine. Reapeated the same on the other tip.
   I get it you think it's a waste of time, your opinion is noted thanks. But if I can ever come up with a pot like I want I will give it a try. I have wasted more time and wood in this bow building than I care to admit. Tried to do some silly things to wood some worked some didn't. But thats ok, its what I like to do.

[Selfbowman]

Bownarra, I get it you think its a waste of time. I do appreciate your comments. But with that being said I don't know if there will be any advantages or not. I am yet to hear from anyone thats tried it. Also I plan on boiling bow blanks, sorry I stated staves at first but modified title to read blanks.
    I don't know how high of a boil you have to bring your blanks to to for bending curves, but its not a roaring boil for me. This winter I was working on a blank, came time to put curves in it and thought I'd try out the kerosene heater for my heatsource. I put about a 11/2 gallon pot of water on the heater and thought it probably will never get to boiling. It never acheived much over what I'd call a simmer, but after about 45 minutes of simmering osage it bent fine. Reapeated the same on the other tip.
   I get it you think it's a waste of time, your opinion is noted thanks. But if I can ever come up with a pot like I want I will give it a try. I have wasted more time and wood in this bow building than I care to admit. Tried to do some silly things to wood some worked some didn't. But thats ok, its what I like to do.

Yes I agree with Bowanarro some what but all that s been learned and shared here came from like experiments. I’m interested cause I know that plumber guy. My interest is how dry  bow blanks will respond to the boil. I would probably try and make one for one limb at a time though, hooking the tip at one end and bending in place on the caul as fast as I could An clamping.

[darinputman]

 Arvin, that may work as well.

[Eric Krewson]

I am an experimenter as well, takes the hum-drum out of bow making and you never know what you will find or learn. Always a lot of nay sayers around to try to get you to conform to their way of thinking but I have never been a crowd follower, neither is Darren

Darrin and I live in the land of osage so if a piece or two ends up as firewood it's no big deal, I have turned a good bit of osage into firewood along the way.

Darrin is much more experimental than I was and I love watching his projects develop, nothing ventured nothing gained in my opinion.

Case in point; my tillering gizmo was the result of a bunch of different ideas, fumbling and design changes to end up what it is today, a good bit of experimenting, so there.

The first gizmo, pretty rough, the screws held the pencil;

[scp]

I got tired of heat treating one limb at a time. So I made the jig to do both limbs at once. This was simple enough because I am using silicon heating strips. It works fine if the limbs do not have much curves. But even for a simple recurve, it is a hassle to make sure both sides match each other rather well.

[Eric Krewson]

Would love to see a picture of your heat treating set-up.

[Selfbowman]

I got tired of heat treating one limb at a time. So I made the jig to do both limbs at once. This was simple enough because I am using silicon heating strips. It works fine if the limbs do not have much curves. But even for a simple recurve, it is a hassle to make sure both sides match each other rather well.

That’s s one reason dry heat is so nice . If it takes three trips to get that recurve bent so be it.

[darinputman]

  Eric thanks, one of the things I like about the gizmo is that it will teach proper tiller if used correctly. I know it has helped me out tremendously.                                                                             
  scp sounds like it could be very beneficial. I would like to see it as well.                                                                                                                             
  Arvin I use a lot of dry heat and never thought of doing it any other way untill I messed up a few recurves. I guess I just had more trouble than most bending recurves, for me boiling was the cure. Still use dry heat to correct them, but have settled on boiling for initial bend, for now anyway.                         
  I guess thats what I like these forums so much, lots of different ideas, some work some don't for me anyway. But I will never believe that just because someone says it will not work they are right it may not work for them. But someone else may make one slight change that will change the outcome, whether they do it on purpose or by accident. I guess I'm just hardheaded that way.  Thanks to everyone for all the comments and maybe one day I'll be able to update thread with some results. Until then I will just continue to enjoy the learning process.