Core drying times
I have sucessfully bent my first pair of cores. They are of wych elm and around 15mm thick / 40mm wide.
I am trying to make this bow from Adam's book and was reading about the drying of core times - green wood 1 wk in forms then 3 months held in shape on a board. Well I was wondering if anybody had experimented with using a heat gun on a low setting and slowly drying the cores after the week of drying in the forms? I've used this technique on steam bent recurves of wood selfbows and it seems to work well.
I am trying to make this bow from Adam's book and was reading about the drying of core times - green wood 1 wk in forms then 3 months held in shape on a board. Well I was wondering if anybody had experimented with using a heat gun on a low setting and slowly drying the cores after the week of drying in the forms? I've used this technique on steam bent recurves of wood selfbows and it seems to work well.
No but I worked the core down to 4-5mm and then only let it dry for 1-2 weeks before applying horn + sinew. the weather was very hot then. when the sinew was dry (2 weeks) I braced it and at least the bow didnt break.