High Performance Fire Hardened Hickory Bow

This is a detailed video showing the dramatic effects that fire hardening has on a raw hickory bow. Turning a good hickory self bow into a high performance self bow.

[@beesmongeese2978]

Yes, I'd love to hear more about your use of a ruler when tillering, Keith.

[@Ouachita.Mule.School]

Y’all are doing more for the primitive archery community than anyone around!!

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Thank you more coming soon.

[@danielspain7231]

Like the video - the more I look at all the variables, I then think of Neolithic production techniques. In saying I would prefer to listen to the stave when you tap it, cured and dried wood at certain moisture contents (in the dry region) sound harmonics when tapped that are far different from wet wood. And feel the ambient temperature of the material just by holding and assessing via bending and floor tiller. I’ve never measured moisture levels in any piece of wood, just haven’t really thought of it, not being a professional bowyer, but I’ve worked with many species and one of my main variables seems to be density, mostly seems that high density takes longer to cure than lower density. Then again…

[@OsborneOutdoors1]

Agreed 👍💯

[@nicholaspowroznick4322]

i love this series of videos (fire hardened bows) keep them coming

[@4estral]

I would love to see you guys do a fire hardened board bow. It's much more accessible to most people, and I'm interested in how you'd deal with the glued-on handle. Red oak is of course everywhere for starters, but white oak is in most stores too.

[@shanhur4562]

Love your content! I hope you and Keith keep up the great work you are doing for the traditional archery community! Thanks!

[@Stanny936]

Thank you guys for sharing this. Your knowledge is priceless. I have some hickory staves that I plan on fire hardening, and your videos will help me greatly

[@ronhuffer]

Beckymbowsareoqs

[@ashadowawhisper]

That Red Shouldered hawk is having a good ol time.

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Yep good observation.

[@briandvictor2239]

Great video. I like the way you guys doing it.

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Thanks Briand

[@barrycherry7605]

Great video as always, you and Keith work good together, would love to see how you and Keith Tiller The bows that y’all are shooting

[@beesmongeese2978]

I absolutely can't wait to watch this, thank you for making this content

[@aaronschwingel3330]

I appreciate and enjoy this fire-hardening content, and I especially enjoyed this video- I think you guys did a great job of demonstrating the effect that a good heat-treat can have on these whitewood bows, by measuring speed before and after. the performance gains that can be had are undeniable. it's also undeniable that it increases the water resistance of the cells that undergo the physical/chemical changes that this treatment causes, and there's no better place to have these changes on a whitewood bow than the belly! I'm roughing out a mollegabet from some hickory right now, and am gonna give this method a go. I think I do well with my Leister heatgun (and it's nice being able to do it inside in front of the TV with air conditioning 😂) but I am curious to try over coals. thanks again for the content, and I hope that you make more!

[@aaronschwingel3330]

I modeled my first bow after one of Keith's stiff-tipped AFBs. lol, I must have paused that video from every possible angle trying to get a good look at it to "borrow" some design cues. 😊 just curious- have either of yall ever tried treating one over an electric stove top? I've heard of it being done but haven't seen anyone try it.

[@waccamawscout5566]

Yeah I have to try it. Thanks for the information

[@jacobkruger2271]

Love all the information!

[@BeckumOutdoors]

So glad!

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Thank you

[@bienyamientoefy1923]

greetings gentleman. i am late,,but came to learn alot with your video lessons.at actually works.my hickory bow shoots much faster.thanks a million🙂

[@Longwinger]

This is an interesting and informing video in more than one way. I'm relatively new to bow building and I'm working on a couple of Ash bows right now. I've been somewhat concerned when noticing a limb on them with, what I thought was, a very *slight* propeller twist. One side of a limb higher then the other, when looking down the limb. However, I noticed the exact same thing on the Hickory bow you were using as an example.I wasn't sure if I needed to heat the limb and twist it out. Apparently there is some room for some slight unevenness. I didn't know if it would hurt the efficiency of the bow. I assume that putting them on a form when fire hardening them might improve the situation. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us!

[@shanhur4562]

Thad, I'm intrigued by your narrow limbed hickory bow. Flies in the face on the conventional wisdom of white wood bows. It's close to the kind of bow I plan on making. Would love to see it in more detail. Keep up the great work!!

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Sure i will try to show the bow profiles soon. Thanks

[@eclipsearchery9387]

It is all about strain. Narrower = longer.

[@tristinriddle101]

Has anyone done a speed test on a fire hardened sinew backed bow

[@keithshannon4410]

Yes, but It's the unstrung profile that determines speed, not whether it's been sinewed or not. Sinew will allow for more unstung backset therefore possibly a little more speed

[@jona.n.thewhale4753]

I love to see your work guys🔥💛 Very interesting that the moist varies from al of them. At this moment i get this magic feeling. Everything is, as i see it, in a cosmic impact and also the moon get to be a part of these process, or is there a cykle in al things..? Ok, im just in a philosophizing state here! ⚡️ I recomend a movie on youtube called (Moonwood) totaly a nother level, but also ancient knowledge that’s need to be ambraced, in these times. Bless! 🍁

[@CrisAnderson27]

I love what you guys are doing (I've got acres and acres of hickory and found you guys through Clay Hayes lol), and love the direct comparison to the unhardened stave...but the naysayers are just going to cry that you didn't shoot a 10grn/lb arrow after it gained nearly 10lbs of pull weight. I just made my first bow and am in the process of getting ready to tiller. It's a hollow limb 56" heavy backset hickory recurve with a LOT of character lol, and I'm seriously seriously debating on whether to fire harden, or just use my heat gun to finish it for the convenience and lack of variables. Nearly the entire bow has been steamed to form and correct twist, then lightly toasted on the belly to while clamped to help cook the form permanently. It's sitting in my 75% humidity shop (southwest Virginia) and has been at 5.5% moisture for a week. The cutoff ends from the original sapling still peg the moisture meter (well over 17%). I know there's no way I 'hardened' it with steam and a small heat gun...but the thing isn't budging in moisture, even with all of our rain recently....and it's got me really curious lol. If you guys have any advice or want to know more...I'd be happy to listen and share. Thank you both for being as open as you have been with your knowledge!

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Thanks

[@user-mb4se6km5p]

Could you show us how to fire harden reflex a bow without a fixture? Maybe a tie down option?

[@crookedwillar]

Great video lots of great information thanks for sharing I bought the fire Hardning video its awesome can you give suggestions on limb width and thickness for around 45lbs @ 28 on a 68inch bow I made a couple around 1 1/4 wide limbs hadn't had any trouble yet thanks again

[@TheSjj123]

can you sreate a video on how you make and especially manipulate the string - stringing & unstringing..

[@davidmiller8332]

Give us some dimensions and layout recommendations, thanks for the work

[@dankosek2355]

Today most bows are sealed with a finish that makes the waterproof/water resistant? So would you ever put a finish on this bow that you used in the testing? Fascinating information! So if you lighten the bow after fire hardening would you retain any of the performance gain?

[@bienyamientoefy1923]

from cape town tip of south africa

[@CloudfeatherRusticWorks]

Question: Isn't shooting a 470gr arrow with a 62lb bow, averaging 175ishfps kind of a bs comparison to the 47lb bow and 470gr arrow at 155ish? Going from 10gpp to about 7.5gpp.

[@keithshannon4410]

Not at all. We were not comparing bows but simply showing what happens to a bow with no changes whatsoever other than a proper fire harden. What you seem to be missing is that to reduce the weight 25% back to 47lb. we need to remove about 25% of the mass which will cause the new 47 lbs. to shoot much harder than the old 47lb. All my fire hardened bows of this style shooting 10 grain arrows shoot in the mid 170s. Hope this helps.

[@keithshannon4410]

This particular bow would shoot 10 grains in mid 160s because it has no backset and somewhat wide outer limbs, which is still a very good speed for this bow. The bows I make for me and my customers carry 11/2 to 2 inches backset and considerably narrower outer limbs which pushes the speed into mid 170s.

[@matthewyu3531]

It's fantastic! Would you kindly tell me how to fire harden a recerved wooden bow? Thank you very much.

[@jimjohn6520]

Fire harden the belly. Clay Hayes has some videos of making a hickory bow in 24 hours. He dug a small channel and placed pieces of tin to direct heat and suspended his bow above a low heat fire- about 165 degrees for a few hours until he got down to 5-7 percent moisture.

[@GanjaGanja89]

Hi! Bought you video and it made a huge difference! I have a question. Whats the durability on the firehardened sweet gum? Any information on how long they're lasting?

[@huntertwitty6597]

Thanks!

[@ЛукиСтрелы-ш2и]

It works for sure, my self bow ash, before it shot 144 feet #42 , at 28 inch draw with 10gpp , then it went to 160.7 after heat treat, got to #50 with 10gpp. But weird thing is it gain 10 pounds fo draw weight after it been siting for a week, whats up with that. Forgot to mention I used heat gun, took me more then hour.

[@eclipsearchery9387]

What moisture content meter do you have? Most of them work on electrical resistance and this will vary from one piece of wood to the next. M.C. meters can be notoriously inconsistent. I find they are useful (bow making) when tracking the m.c. of a particular piece as you work it. The really good m.c. meters are programmable for wood species.

[@eclipsearchery9387]

To make this a apples to apples comparison you should retiller that bow back down to 47# and see what was really gained. Marc St.Loius did this in his heat treating chapter. Otherwise you are comparing apples to oranges ;) 47@ 28 with a 10gpp arrow versus 62#@28 with a 7.66gpp arrow..... It is hard to say exactly what the difference is when draw weights aren't the same. Of course to keep wood strain at the same level the bow should be re-tillered by removing only width - not removing any thickness.

[@lutherkiger4936]

Mark St. Louis wrote about fire hardening bows at length in the Traditional Bowyer’s Bible (2008)

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Mark St. Louis did write a chapter in the Bowyers Bible on heat treatment not fire hardening. Read his information again.

[@lutherkiger4936]

Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.

[@keithshannon4410]

@@lutherkiger4936 Heat treating can't come close to the level of improvements we showed. Seems like you've never made a fire hardened bow to me.

[@shanhur4562]

@@BeckumOutdoors I don't understand the resistance to this. Mark St. Louis did a great service with his chapter in The Bowyer's Bible. He lays out his process very clearly. It isn't what you and Keith are doing. No big deal. Do whatever you want. No one is forcing anyone to go cut a stave and try this fire-hardening technique. It's almost as if people resent getting another perspective on bow-building. You and Keith lay out the facts very clearly, and, I might add, freely, since you have put a lot of information on your KZbin channel free of charge . I purchased the Fire-hardening video and love it, but no one is forcing people to buy it. As for me, I appreciate you and Keith's contributions to traditional archery.

[@BeckumOutdoors]

@@lutherkiger4936 Like the man said you don't have to do anything. Seems like that may be the real issue.

[@matthewmoutos6851]

Would have been better test with a 620gr arrow or retailer back to 47 lbs

[@kellypeterson5771]

Am a total green novice to bow building of any kind. I have studied, examined fiberglass/wood construction in detail but have never even held a selfbow. The intrigue of shooting a bow of one’s make and maybe hunting with it has tremendous appeal to me even after over 60 years of shooting recurves. Lately, even shooting fiberglassed longbows has more appeal to me and I think the next step is going to self bows. For someone with no bow building experience what would be my first step, using a stave or a board or building a simple composite backed single layer board to build the first bow from? Or should someone just go whole hog and take the class from Keith even if I know not much of how to do it. At 74 years of age I don’t know how much time I have to weed thru the tribulations of beginning at the beginning and learning from my experiences.

[@BeckumOutdoors]

If you could get a couple of small staves to practice tillering? Make a couple small light weight bows and get control over the steps of bow making. Tillering is the heart of bow making. There are many KZbin videos that show good bow making methods. Clay Hayes has a whole series. Simple small saplings can learn you how to work the bow wood without compressing the belly fibers . You can make these kind of bows in a couple of hours after drying. Quick drying bow wood can be done in a matter of 12 hours. Watch our video on making a bow from green tree to finished bow in 12 hours. I will post a video very soon showing what I consider to be an easy and effective approach to making a wood bow that is not a dud or have bad string follow even for your first attempt. Keep checking for the video. I have never posted a video on my method but I think I will soon. I will also say that older fellows can use a band saw and sander. You can crank out a lot of bows without the stress on your body. The bow does not care how fast you remove wood. Removing wood properly is the only thing that matters. I have made great bows with stone tools but in general I use all the advantage of electricity. I have had many spinal surgeries and at 66 it only makes sense. The finished bow is still a wood bow. Keep watching for my tillering video. Thanks.

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Just wanted to tell you me and Keith decided yesterday to shoot a video on tillering and and another called the thousand year old bow. Thanks

[@philipsutton2316]

It's a shame you didn't shoot an arrow that was 10GPP in the end of the vid (after the bow was hardened and increased poundage). It really gives us no reference to the fact that did it increase in its efficiency and may therefore shoot a 10GPP arrow faster than it did before it was fire hardened? Of course it shot 20FPS faster in the end because it increased by 15 poundage, but how much of that 20 FPS was due to better efficiency because it was fire hardened as opposed to simply the fact that it increase in poundage.

[@kennethhicks6755]

Would there be any benefit or downside to hardening both sides? In terms of getting the browning throughout the whole bow?

[@wingit4316]

Fire hardening strengthens fibres, but makes them somewhat brittle. If you bend a fire hardened bow backwards, it will snap long before an identical raw bow. Hardening the back will cause it to fail in tension

[@rudynunweiler2916]

@@wingit4316 I agree, only fire harden the belly of the bow! The purpose of the hardening is to increase the resistance to the compression the belly of the bow faces when pulling the tips toward it with the bowstring. The back is not under compression and actually stretching so needs to retain some elasticity. Therefore hardening the back would have a negative impact on the performance of the bow and possibly cause failure. Hope this is helpful!

[@timmeisburger3808]

I'm curious. Can you pull it back to 47# (rather than the same draw length), and see if you have a difference in speed? Will fire hardening increase the speed of a bow of the same weight? I would think there would be at least some increase in speed because you reduce the mass of the limbs, with a 47# fire hardened bow weighing less than a 47# raw bow. Does varnishing the bow reduce moisture uptake?

[@aaronschwingel3330]

Can't really make a viable comparison that way, as you get too many variables to account for, but it would be interesting to see. say the raw bow pulled 47lbs at 28", and the heat-treated bow pulled 47lbs at just 23". you'd have identical weight, but the dynamics of the powerstroke and string angles have changed considerably from the change in draw length. I would expect that the heat-treated bow would be quicker (just a guess) though part of it would probably depend on the design of the particular bow and the lengths in question, as well as arrow weights. a 50lb bow at 26" draw would shoot a heck of a lot better than a 50lb bow at 10" draw, because the first would have much more time/distance to impart its energy onto the arrow.

[@jimmartinette9655]

Once you get the fire harding where you want it do you guys put a finish on it? I've made lots of Osage bows, but only one Hickory Bow. It's a good Bow, but not as good as the Osage bows. I have a Tru-oil finish on all my Bows, so I guess I'm going to have to make another Hickory Bow and fire harden it. The Hickory staves don't cost as much as the Osage for sure. So the next Hickory I make I'd like to put some deflex in it. Do you recommend that and is there a formula for making that deflex form you use?

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Yes, any finish you like. I have some with rendered fat finish and others with modern. Thanks

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Just make an even arch on your form. Whatever setback you desire. Easy. Draw measurements and use a flexible edge to connect the dots.

[@josegodoy9160]

Hola aquí hay árbol de fresno mi pregunta es se puede hacer un arco y endurecer con calor del fuego

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Yes it has been done with ash

[@josegodoy9160]

@@BeckumOutdoors gracias x su respuesta voy a probar hacer un arco con ese tratamiento de calor

[@hillbillyslots1636]

Can you cut hickory any time of year??? For this.

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Yes

[@MTmpstxo]

Hello, I have been closely studying some of your methodology and trying to listen to the wisdom of your experience and I would like to say thank you for everything you've shared thus far. That being said, I am currently in central Georgia and I have around 100 acres to harvest staves from. So far I have worked a couple of willow oak staves and I am slow drying some winged elm. However, I have not been able to find any hickory of any type on the land I have available to harvest from. I'd like to know 2 things from your thoughts... 1: could I possibly make a purchase or a trade with you for a couple raw hickory staves? 2: what I knowingly have are Winged elm, perssimmon and a ton of sweetgum as well as water oak red oak and white oak. I also have a seemingly endless supply of American bamboo. Of these things, what am I able to fire harden in the same way you have shown to be done with hickory, assuming you are able to say? I have been obsessed with bow making for a while and doing the work is where the enjoyment lies yet is truely discovered when new things are learned and failures are achieved. Again I thank you for sharing your knowledge and experiences in this wonderful adventure that takes us all back to the primal and primitive ways of our ancestors. Thank you M

[@wingit4316]

One of their fastest fire hardened bows was made of sweetgum.

[@wingit4316]

Red and white oak would be excellent candidates for fire hardening as well, especially white oak, which has enormous strength in tension but takes set easily

[@kevinemard5370]

What would you coat the bow with to prevent it from taking on moisture?

[@BeckumOutdoors]

What ever you desire.

[@jimjohn6520]

Linseed oil is a common choice. Gun wood finish is also very good.

[@marcweier1634]

Great video, just don’t understand the logic of testing with the same arrow with 15 lbs of difference in draw weight. IMO both shot at 10 gpp would be a much better comparison.

[@keithshannon4410]

We wanted to show what happens to the bow with everything else being equal. With a 10 grain arrow the speed should be in the mid to upper160's, with narrowed outer limbs and 1to 2 inches of backset and 10 grs. it would be in the mid 170s just like all the others.

[@BeckumOutdoors]

Yes you are right. Just showing what happens with same bow and arrow. I will shoot it with a ten grain comparison and post the video. We knew that question would arise but just wanted to do the same bow and arrow.

[@aaronschwingel3330]

testing with the same arrow makes sense in this case, because you're not testing one bow to another to see how efficient they are per lb of draw weight. you're testing the SAME bow against itself, with only variable being the fire-hardening. when you do this sort of comparative experimentation, you only want to change one variable at a time.. otherwise you wouldnt know which variable caused the data to change.

[@marcweier1634]

@@aaronschwingel3330 I used to test a lot of bows, I would have liked to see the numbers with the same arrow as they did but also both at 10 gpp. Really 20 fps increase with a 15# increase of draw weight with the same arrow seems like it is less efficient. Only way to know for sure is to compare based on draw weight to arrow weight. If the fire hardened bow shoots slower at 10gpp that means the fire hardening reduced the efficiency of the bow.

[@keithshannon4410]

@@marcweier1634 According to Bowyers Bible volume 1, a average straight stave 50 lb. bow at 28 inch draw will shoot a 500 grain arrow 13 ft. faster than a 60 lb. at 28 inches with same arrow . That's 1.3 per lb.. 15 lbs. increase x 1.3 =19.5 ft.per second increase. Sounds pretty close to me.

[@calebchristian404]

Would making a fire hardened 50 inches be to short. Would there be an issue with the bow breaking. What if u sinew back it???

[@BeckumOutdoors]

That all depends on alot of factors. Sinew back after fire treatment would work fine. Wood species is a big consideration. Draw length etc.

[@oakridgeboy2023]

Fire hardened a osage longbow its bad dude

[@oakridgeboy2023]

Turkey time