Heat Treating for Beginners | Fundamentals of Bow Making

[@sammurphy5079]

Love to the bow gods! They must always be watching you! 🙌🏻

[@aurorachacon1128]

It’s nice to see how you spend time explaining important issues for beginners.

[@Gauchooriental]

You have the wonderful ability to explain important issues! To set priorities is fundamental!! Again top notch music!!!Those Uruguayans are incredible!!!

[@dawnmaster96]

I didnt realize thihs video was posted Just now, definitely a good summary of heat treating and something im glad to have watched, thank you!

[@DanSantanaBows]

thanks Fox!

[@ryoonit]

Great video, Dan. I appreciate the comment about not heat treating when you start out. I’m glad I didn’t know about that when I started. Very easy to be overloaded with knowledge for new bowyers these days.

[@DanSantanaBows]

Not being gun-shy with the bow is so much more valuable than a few more fps. A bow with a little set can go a long way if you trust it at full draw.

[@jillatherton4660]

Awesome cousin? Yup. I was just about to play my guitar, and this popped up. 😄👍

[@DanSantanaBows]

Oh yeah! I used to look for free music for hours and hours and still not be happy with my choice! I could never ask for custom live music but I’m very glad to have it

[@jillatherton4660]

@@DanSantanaBows 👍

[@roman_sudneko]

Thank you for your videos.

[@DanSantanaBows]

My pleasure!

[@joedaniels4646]

Avery good video Dan thanks for sharing. Happy Easter & God bless ya!

[@javant6993]

Excellent video, very informative. My hazel bow has taken some set, so I am thinking about heat treating my next bow (hazel) to prevent set, although it already has some reflex from drying out

[@fableblades]

Shout out to your cousin's awesome music

[@niideabo]

Hola desde uruguay

[@brettcaldwell3278]

You always have excellent content. Would you ever heat treat a board bow, or is this technique only for raw lumber that hasn’t been dried in a kiln? Also, would you heat treat before you glue on a backing (e.g. linen and Titebond III) or riser, or can you heat treat after you back the bow and glue on a riser?

[@DanSantanaBows]

You can heat treat a board bow. Definitely do it before backing though. See my board bow tutorial for an example

[@glenn_r_frank_author]

I did heat treat my first few attempts at bows, and my recent first real successful maple bow. I probably did not heat treat it as much as I could have. But it did help a bit with holding back some set and made it a little bit stronger (still just a 35ish lb bow). since I did not really get a very visible heat treat on the belly, is it okay or advisable to give it another treatment now that it has sat for a good week since I first finished it (with some boiled linseed oil) and put my first 50-60 arrow shot through it? I would like to see if I can give it more backset than it has and maybe even slightly increase the poundage.

[@DanSantanaBows]

It’s possible but usually I’d rather save the heat treating for next time. It’s much more powerful for preventing set than dealing with it

[@glenn_r_frank_author]

@@DanSantanaBows Thanks... so, is it best to do some backset heat treating when the bow is just roughly tillered and not quite final tillered or after the tiller is pretty complete? I was afraid that if I did more tillering and wood removal after heat treating that I was just removing any benefit I had added by the heat treat as I shaved more wood off.

[@DanSantanaBows]

@@glenn_r_frank_author Even though you remove the wood the benefit is that you’re tillering with better wood and so you take less set. The final one is most important but that’s why it can help to do multiple

[@johnt.chambers4204]

Dan, I have a question which I am hoping you can answer. First, I have made several bows from different species of wood but I wouldn’t really consider myself a bowyer, just more of a hobbiest. I am making a long bow that I plan to back with rawhide and paint some Cherokee designs on. I found a piece of red oak with a beautiful tight curly grain (which is rather rare in red oak). I wanted the bow to be around 60 to 65 lbs. By the time I was happy with the tiller, it was around 55 lbs. To get the pull back where I wanted it I applied 3 layers of fiberglass cloth. My concern is that, in the past, I have rawhide backed 3 bows and all I ever used was Tightbond 3 which worked very well. However, I don’t think it would bond properly to the fiberglass. I also am not sure that epoxy would bond very well to the wet rawhide. What type of adhesive would you recommend using? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[@herbertkuttner9228]

Dan When heat treatment is done, can you also put a backing on the bow ? And when should you put the backing on before or after heat treatment also what type of backing would be best, I want to keep it simple. Thank you Herb Kuttner

[@DanSantanaBows]

Heat treat before adding a backing because the heat may mess with your glue line. The best backing is air since it weighs nothing, but without being cute some good options are linen, rawhide, or any tough cloth you can get your hands on. See the chapter on backings in my video on the back of the bow. Also see the backing chapter in the board bow tutorial for an example of how to apply

[@herbertkuttner9228]

@@DanSantanaBows Dan Thank you 🙏 for your knowledge and your videos that really are very informative and helpful to us newbies in the craft (Hobby) Thanks again Herb Kuttner

[@Capitan_Papen1918]

I'm right now going for the first time with heat on my bow. I have made a couple of weeks ago my fourth bow that is 50lbs I really don't want to mess it up, so I' ll first try to use dry heat on my second bow that came out quite a piece of junk...they are both made of Robinia Pseudoacacia (black locust in English I think). The issue is that both of them came from the same stave that is twisty, resulting in bows a bit twisted, the limbs a bit on the left compared to the center and the lower limb with a natural excessive curvature. On my fourth bow I didn't already apply the finishing so I can take it back on tillering if things change by heating, but I really want to straight it up because it have some lack of accuracy, at 15 meter I have 50cm of arrow dispersion (at mostly on the left of the target). So hope that placing it in shape and heating will resolve, I also did tried with steam on a pot but I couldn't shape it, probably I mistaken something, maybe I'll write down the results and if it is easy as a beginner or it would be critical damage for the bow

[@DanSantanaBows]

Straightening can always help. If accuracy is an issue then arrow tuning could be the problem, Sometimes narrowing the grip can make the bow more forgiving of bad arrow tune

[@Capitan_Papen1918]

@@DanSantanaBows thanks for your reply, I'm sure that the arrows are perfect because I bought them and tested with a "secure" bow I use "Big tradition classic" wooden arrows. Now I just finished to straight up the first of the two bows, the one that came out a little bad and I say that the heat treat is a 100% saving solution, that bow was so bad that it was almost junk now I have to say that at 5 meters (tested in my garage 😅) it hit the center on the target on all the shoots. I'm really happy to have achieved that skill and those results, right now I'm adding reflex to the same bow then I' ll test the draw weight at 29 inches (before treating it was 17lbs). When I' m done with this bow I' ll start working at my last bow (the 50lbs one) hope to have the same happy results

[@DanSantanaBows]

@Capitan_Papen1918 I don’t mean that the arrows are bad, they may just be too stiff for this particular bow

[@Capitan_Papen1918]

@@DanSantanaBows oooo ok I did read something about it, like using arrows made for 45lbs bow on a low draw weight bow they results too tick flying too much on the left (or right depending how the arcier is handed)

[@DanSantanaBows]

@Capitan_Papen1918 for self bows you can go a bit more flexible since modern glass bows shoot a bit harder

[@alekseylebed4945]

Отлично! Покажите его в действии?

[@DanSantanaBows]

When it’s finished. I work on a lot of bows so each one takes a long time

[@BubuH-cq6km]

😎 👍🏼 🔥

[@Dan_bow]

Hi love your videos...I have a question...my ash longbow has a very small hairline crack in the Belly..I have heat treated the belly and retillered..it's very small I have shot 50 arrows out of it did not move is this something to worry about

[@DanSantanaBows]

@@Dan_bow Is the crack open or is it a compression fracture? See my second to last video for a good visual of what those look like

[@Dan_bow]

@@DanSantanaBows Just a compression fraction

[@DanSantanaBows]

@@Dan_bow If the bow is stable you can keep shooting. But this is a sign that area is over stressed, or that it was during tillering

[@Dan_bow]

@@DanSantanaBows I sent you an email of the small crack

[@Daylon91]

Have u fire hardened your bows? Ive heard that its better than simply heat treating with a heat gun. Like Heat treating is imbetween a real fire hardened bow and a wet white wood bow.

[@DanSantanaBows]

Can of worms. Fire hardening IS a type of heat treating. Of course it is-what else would it be? The idea that “fire hardening” isn’t heat treating or that it’s categorically better came from the recent dvd claiming to have rediscovered a lot of these techniques. Truth is bowyers have been using fire/coals for millennia and we didn’t need a dvd to remind us. I was using coals to heat treat well before that dvd and I can guarantee you it wasn’t my idea either. While I think fire hardening is a great way to heat treat there is a lot of misinformation about it online. You can’t really compare fire hardening with a light and shallow heat treat. The main variables are time and temperature and the wood doesn’t really care whether the heat is from a fire or electrical source, other things being equal. It’s all about how long you hold the wood at what temperature. If fire hardening was a superior technique it would be able to produce bows with superior profiles. But it doesn’t-great bowyers can turn out bows with great profiles either way. The debate should be where to set the time and temperature variables. I worry that by accepting the premise of the DVD we are pretending like it’s all some mystery that we don’t understand. Heat treating has been well within the grasp of bowyers and forestry science for a long time now. Saying that fire hardening isn’t heat treating is like saying that barbecue isn’t cooking, just cus it’s low and slow and uses fire

[@RnRJB]

I wouldn't classify ashwood as whitewood or treat it as such. Yes, sapwood is not clearly discernible from heartwood, especially in dry wood. The difference is only visible on cross-cut in fresh wood, where heartwood is pink and sapwood is pale creamy colored. Sapwood is very brittle and damgerous to have in a bow. Not that I have made any ash bows, but I have plenty of woodworking experience. When I use ash for tool handles, as a rule of thumb, I discard at least 1" of the outer growth. When I'm making staves for tool handles, I take trees with at least 10-12" diameter.

[@DanSantanaBows]

Ash is one of the most popular bow woods and is considered a textbook whitewood. I prefer to use the sapwood and so do most bowyers from what I’ve seen. The underbark surface is excellent for bows if the tree is healthy

[@RnRJB]

@@DanSantanaBows I am aware of all that. What I'm saying is, there's a reason (other than poor build) why an ash bow can sometimes explode. I noticed that when hewing ash, the first 1" under the bark is very brittle and will sometimes break off in large chunks, and the heartwood will not break at all.

[@DanSantanaBows]

@@RnRJB That sounds like a rot issue. Healthy ash doesn’t behave like that at all