heat treating/ tempering a belly.

[whitewoodshunter]

This may seem dumb, but  I  have never heat treated or tempered a belly of a bow. How do you heat treat  and is it the same as tempering? And if not what is tempering and how do you do this?

[adb]

If you have (or are thinking about getting) a copy of the new TBB vol 4, there is an excellent & comprehensive chapter by Marc St Louis on this very subject. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book. It can be purchased at horsefeathersranch.com.

[PeteC]

Whitewood,this might sound too easy,but all I do is ; (1)clamp the bow in reflex.(2)Take your heat-gun,and toast all working areas of the limbs.(3) Let it cool,wait a couple of hours,and (4) Tiller ,That's it. Hope this helps, God Bless

[islandpiper]

I made an Ash bow last week.  It took more set right away than I wanted to see.   So, before any finishing , I brought it home and sort of levered it over the kitchen  island with the other end under the dishwasher and "toasted" it with my heatgun.  I had some REVERSE STRINGFOLLOW  sprung into it while I worked.   (Note: all the aformentioned appliances plug into my Pre-Columbian 120V outlet in the kitchen)   

It browned it up a little.   It seemed to lift the grain a little.  I took it back to work the next day, final sanded it and doped it up real good with my oil mix.  After that, I thing the pull is about the same, but the "set" has not returned to it's previous level. 

In retrospect, I probably should have toasted it longer, and let the heat get to the middle.  And, a simple clamping system might have saved me standing there and holding it till bedtime. 

piper

[Kegan]

I do just as Pete C does. And yes, they are the same thing, tempeirng and heat treating.