Questions on bending wood/Spear shaft

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Ugly Sauce

Ugly Sauce

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I made this spear a while ago, that had quite a bit of bend aft or below the handle. I thought it was cool, but now I'd really like to straighten it out a bit.

You can see how I have it set up, and the plan was/is to pour boiling water on it periodically and see if the weight of the brick would bend it back. The brick or block is about the max weight I think without breaking the shaft.

My question is, do you think this will work? Do you think kerosene would soften it up? I can't steam it as those plants around the stump are Arrow Leaf Balsum root, which are kind of a valuable medicinal plant. Not going to clear those out and put a boiling pot underneath it.

Thoughts or advice? Yes I could build a whole other set up to steam it, but does anyone think the boiling water will work? Or, matter of time, might take a few weeks? Or....???
 
Depends on what kind of wood the shaft is. Hickory or ash can be heated and bent with dry heat, like a heat gun, but it helps to apply some light oil, cooking oil works, to the wood as you heat it.
I would think that pouring boiling on old towels then wrapping it might do the job too but you'd need to keep re-applying the boiling water. You could try using a heat gun and apply the heat to a wet towel wrapped on the stick where it needs straightening.
 
Steam the area, I don't work with wood but on shows where they do, steaming wood helps to limber it up.
 
hso said:
Noooooo

Wood is bent with steam.

Steam the wood to the desired shape.
Click to expand...

No probably won't try kerosene, but it crossed my mind as rifle-ram rods are often soaked in kerosene to make them more pliable, and less likely to break.

As mentioned I don't want to make a big production, or set-up at the moment to steam it. In fact, I might decide that is not worth the trouble and forget it. Not like I can take it over to my steam-machine. !!! Don't have a steam machine.
Mk-211 said:
Steam the area, I don't work with wood but on shows where they do, steaming wood helps to limber it up.
Click to expand...

Yes, steam is the ideal, but I don't have any kind of set up to steam something like that.
 
For what it's worth how were you intending to use that spear? If throwing it you'll want it as straight as possible - but if using it in hand - that bend just gives it "character"... As far as steam boxes go.. there was an episode of Life Below Zero where one of the folks, Chip Hailstone, made and used a steam box of some sort to fabricate runners on a sled he was building... He comes on this site at times - his handle is Caribou. If you shoot him a message he might explain just how to go about steaming wood to bend (or straighten it) and exactly how to build a simple steaming box or pipe...
Hope this helps and if you do some steaming you might post about it here - there will be folks interested in learning.. .
 
lemaymiami said:
For what it's worth how were you intending to use that spear? If throwing it you'll want it as straight as possible - but if using it in hand - that bend just gives it "character"... As far as steam boxes go.. there was an episode of Life Below Zero where one of the folks, Chip Hailstone, made and used a steam box of some sort to fabricate runners on a sled he was building... He comes on this site at times - his handle is Caribou. If you shoot him a message he might explain just how to go about steaming wood to bend (or straighten it) and exactly how to build a simple steaming box or pipe...
Hope this helps and if you do some steaming you might post about it here - there will be folks interested in learning.. .
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. No, I would never throw a spear. The bend did give it character, and I liked it at first, but all my other spears are straight, or if they have bends, they have "counter-bends", and I've just found that I actually don't like it. On making any kind of steam box, just don't have time for that now. In the future maybe, I often find nice spear shafts in the woods that I have to reject as they will have too much bend, it would be nice to get set up to bend poles straight. Might have to do that...some day...next winter, something like that.

The good news is, after some boiling water treatments, the brick has dropped about or almost a half inch, so there's hope. Of course it might just spring back! I think I'll just leave it for a week at least, with the brick on it, let the sun beat on it, give it the boiling water when I can, maybe get two or three kettles rotating. It "could" work.
 
Shanghai McCoy said:
Depends on what kind of wood the shaft is.
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It is cedar, which is really hard to find a long skinny piece of. It is all quite bent, this just happened to be less bent so I took it home. Unlike milled cedar, or cedar boards, it is quite dense and strong.
 
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Ugly Sauce said:
It is cedar, which is really hard to fine a long skinny piece of. It is all quite bent, this just happened to be less bent so I took it home. Unlike milled cedar, or cedar boards, it is quite dense and strong.
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OK, from reading the above I think you are on the right track with the boiling water then. And yes, keep the block in place till the wood drys cause it can and might spring back.
 
hso said:
Got a large pot to boil water in? Camp stove? Electric burner? It ain't rocket surgery. l
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Yep, I just experimented with a tea pot, but yes I will put a bucket on the camp stove, and some big pots and really go to town. It's been 103 degrees around here lately, so sitting in the sun and boiling water over a fire is not good option. A little bit of the bend has been reduced, so it may work.
 
Ugly Sauce said:
Yep, I just experimented with a tea pot, but yes I will put a bucket on the camp stove, and some big pots and really go to town. It's been 103 degrees around here lately, so sitting in the sun and boiling water over a fire is not good option. A little bit of the bend has been reduced, so it may work.
Click to expand...
This technique might work:
1. Soak bent staff in water for a couple of days. A piece of rain gutter capped at both ends would work as a receptacle.
2. Construct a caul out of 3 pieces of 3/4" x 4" boards, cut to the length of the staff. Cut the middle piece of board 1" narrower than the others. Glue them up with Titebond III, then cut a slight curve in the middle.
3. Clamp the staff in the caul, nestled in the groove, with the bent portion sticking up. Apply clamps along the length of the staff, using wood blocks to protect staff from clamps. The idea is to over-correct the bent part of the staff, as it will tend to spring back a little after loosening clamps. You may need to tighten the clamp on the bent part just a little bit every 12 hours or so as you might not be able to draw it all the way down at first.
 
Wow, good thinking. I like it. Did not occur to me to soak it first. Good idea. If I don't make any or much progress as it is, that may well be worth the time and effort.

That or steaming would be the solution with a bare shaft, however, this is a finished spear, with leather handles, wire wrap and epoxy and tite-bond glue on it in places. In the future, I will experiment more fully with bare-shafts that I bring home that have bend in them, which most do. Usually I have to cut them shorter than I would like to get a reasonably straight short section. I prefer a spear that has some reach.

Wow you guys have given me much good ideas ("much good ideas"??) for the future of spear making. Thanks.
 
If you have a charcoal grill you can use it to heat up the wood and bend it, best if you have some sort of jig like a 2x6 with one inch dowel to hold the staff in place as it is bending it at the same time.
 
Right, in hind sight, if I had strapped her down in another place, I could have chosen a place where I could put a grill under it and used heat that way.

However, the good news is: it is working, I've gained almost two inches today after boiling three big pots of water, and two tea pots full, and trickling all that over it slowly. That's a lot of movement. Actually it is straight right now, but of course there would be some spring-back, so I'm shooting for a slight reverse-bend. Then I can remove the weight and see where she goes. I added a bit of weight to it today, but man I'm right on the edge of what that shaft can take, I think.

I wrapped a towel around it today, which did keep a lot of moisture and heat in, in the short run. But as soon as it cools off, the evaporating towel then cools it down, don't want that. So there's a short time period when using the towel, and you have to take it off. Tonight I may wrap it in wet towels just to give it a soak overnight, keep it wet.

Also, time is on my side, I can leave it out there tied to the stump for days, weeks, whatever and let the hot sun can work on it when I'm not able to give it the "treatment". On the other hand, this is one time consuming and labor intense way to do it. !!! Note to self: straighten shaft BEFORE finishing spear. !
 
If you have a vice that would be very helpful as well to keep it nice and straight while it dries. Regardless that is some pretty good thinking out of the box you did.
 
Thanks! Well, I have a big vice, but my shop is a mess, and crowded. And, I thought with this heat wave and the crazy burning sun that the sun could do a lot of the work for me. !! Where she's strapped down now gets sun about all day.
 
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