Another Steam Question

[DesertFox]

I have another hickory board bow coming along now. I had read that rubbing oil into the area you want to steam can keep it from collecting too much moisture as well as prevent it from heating un-evenly, so I did that. Both limbs have bent wonderfully to around 80 degrees (definitely recurve).

Now here's the question. How long should I wait before trying to tiller and finish this bow? I pretty much have no way of knowing if it has soaked up any water OR how much. If it needs to dry, could I dry it in my car? (which reaches over 100F in the sun)

[walkabout]

wish i could tell you from experience, but i havent used steam yet to bend recurves. from what i read you have to let them sit on the form you bent them on for awhile, possibly a day or so, which helps ensure the bends stay.as for how long to wait to finish, id say a few days,although i dont know if leaving it in the hot car will help or hurt.

[Pat B]

I would wait a week before stressing it.

[horseapple]

How much of the limbs did you steam? When I bend statics on my selfbows I boil then dry heat while its still on the bending form, I've tillered one after 24hrs.

JD

[DesertFox]

Originally posted by horseapple:
How much of the limbs did you steam? When I bend statics on my selfbows I boil then dry heat while its still on the bending form, I've tillered one after 24hrs.

JD

I ended up doing something similar actually. I read about heat treated ash bows from a past post and I thought "Hey, I could just heat the water out of the limb tips." I did so over our electric stove and it worked wonderfully. I now have a recurve with functioning curves! Shoots wonderfully. I'm going to finish it up to look like the videogame bow I had posted about a while ago and then post some pictures on here.