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Main Boards => The Bowyer's Bench => Topic started by: mec lineman on October 17, 2016, 10:27:00 PM
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found a perfectly straight 7-8" pig nut hickory. I cut it and was wondering what was the best thing to put on the ends. I read years ago about guys sealing the ends with wood glue, I was wandering about polyeurthene ? also what is a good drying time . thanks craig
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Split it in half first. You can use poly but I'd brush a few coats on. Wood glue works good. Some folks water the wood glue down a bit and it still seals well.
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Thanks pat
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Hickory is slow to dry, especially in a humid climate like Virginia. If you can store it in a climate controlled area(inside your house) it will dry quicker. After a week or two after splitting in half you can split out staves and take them down to floor tiller stage. This will give you workable staves in a month or two.
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I quarter my logs first thing then if I'm feeling really impatient I'll bring one or two of the splits down to floor tiller stage as pat suggested. I use shelack if I have it around or have even uses white latex paint on the ends.
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I'm still new with bowyering, so this my answer is based on my general woodworking experience and what I've read on the subject.
Assuming you cut down the live tree it will take a while for it to air dry enough to work, I don't know how dry the wood should be for making bows, so I'd just listen to Pat and Ewok if you are going to air dry.
I do know a few kiln-less methods to speed the general wood drying process, but I'm not certain how well they will work with bow staves so use at your own risk.
One involves a microwave, so unless you have a 92" microwave, it's a moot point.
The other is to place the piece of wood in a trash bag (with the dimensions you are working with you'd probably need to cut and tape several together) lay the bag sideways on the floor and fill the bag with a decent amount of dry wood chips/shavings and saw dust. Then get some coffee filters, fill them with salt, and tie them off at the top to make pouches. Place the salt pouches at approximately equal intervals through the bag on either side of the piece of wood, and change them when they are wet. It's been awhile since I used this method, so some of the details are a little fuzzy (seal the ends or don't seal, bark on or off, etc.) But you should be able to find the details online if you want to try this method.
I've never tried it personally, or even seen it suggested as far as i can recall, but you might try putting the staves in a small room with a few dehumidifiers, or if you feel like experimenting with the theory you could even install a few outlets or run an extension cord into a hotbox and plug in some dehumidifiers. Again never tried it but I don't think it could hurt.
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You can take a stave down to floor tiller stage without stressing it and it will dry quicker. You can put it in a hot box or in a car in the sun to aid the drying process. Hickory, like no other bow woods likes to be about 6% m/c for best performance where most other bow woods need 9%-11%. It is difficult to get a hickory stave to 6% in the Eastern US but if you keep it in a hot box or even in your climate controlled house you can get it down to a reasonable m/c for bow building. I've made and shot many hickory bows and one of the favorite bow woods of the Eastern Woodland Natives was hickory so it must be a pretty good bow wood even with it's m/c downfalls.