u/Zuldyck

Ive been researching recurve bending and Ive uncovered more questions than answers. I Think there is a still a decent amount of speculation on the specifics of heat bending in the bowyer community. what do you all think about this stuff?

1. First off, what is the role of moisture in bending a bow?

Generally speaking wood bends easier when it is wet, thats a fact (yes, you need heat as well). But for bowyers we dont always use water to bend bows, or if we do we usually steam them rather than actually soaking them and getting them truly wet. Is there a reason for this other than "its inconvenient to have to wait for it to redry after getting it wet"?

2. Does introducing moisture into the wood potentially damage it?

We take care to make sure our fresh staves dont dry out too fast because this can damage the wood, but Ive never heard of anyone addressing this problem when steaming or boiling their bow. How is it that a stave can crack when left to in open air due to evaporation but a freshly soaked bow wont crack when allowed to dry?

3. To what extent does steaming or boiling affect the moisture in a bow?

I've heard that steam is merely a vehicle for heat to transfer into the bow, the amount of moisture that enters the actual wood is very superficial. If this is true then why do people generally think steaming is more "safe" and less likely to cause splintering?

My board is thin and my handle section will end up being only 3/8 " thick. Will the thinness of the section cause it to bend too much and pop off my riser or will my riser prevent it from bending?

Is it necessary to follow a growth ring on black locust or could I keep a perfectly flat milled back and be fine? I would prefer not to back it with anything if possible.

Maybe this is the wrong subreddit and trigger warning because it's pretty sad and morbid so don't read if you're sensitive. I need help figuring this out because it makes no fucking sense to me.

Here's the situation, my cat went missing about 6 weeks ago, I looks for 4 days, flyers on every door within 2 blocks of my house, posters on corners all around my neighborhood, nothing. On day 5 someone calls my number from one of my posters and says "I saw your cat 5 days ago while riding my bike on a street 1 block from my(op) house, looked like he had been hit by a car" he went on to imply that my cat did not look good and was likely dying or dead. So I was upset and I assumed that since he had seen my cat 5 days ago my cat had long passed and had been scooped up by animal control or someone had disposed of him and that's why I never saw my cat while searching the neighborhood. So I stop looking, take down my online posts, grieve and accept.

Fucking today I get a call from animal control 6 full weeks after I've given up, they have my cat, he HAS A SPINAL INJURY AND IT LOOKS LIKE HE HAS BRAIN SWELLING, they recommend I don't wait to euthanize so I give them the go ahead over the phone (kind of regret not telling them to wait for me to come say goodbye). Apparently They found him LESS THAN 1 BLOCK FROM MY HOUSE, someone called animal control and they picked him up from a house only a few doors down from me. Animal control only told me the address and nothing more about how he was found or where or by who.

I'm so confused what series of events could have led to this and I'm so sad to think that he might have been suffering this whole time.

Any ideas what happened? I'm going to go talk to my neighbors tomorrow.

Blue collar jobs are generally not preferred to desk jobs because they are supposedly so physically tough or damaging to your body. Maybe this was the case in the 1930s when they had 12 hour shifts in the coal mine, but these days the blue collar jobs are well regulated to keep everyone safe and healthy. If you take care while working you are actually better off than someone who sits in a chair all day and ends up overweight with back problems.

An average office worker ends up having to exercise just to keep healthy, whereas a blue collar worker will usually get good exercise while getting paid at work.

It's so weird to me how people will go to the gym and lift weights but if you offer them a job where they lift packages they would rather take a desk job that pays the same or less.

Edit:a lot of people are bringing up the fact that they know many unhealthy or overweight blue collar workers. That's definitely something I've noticed too but that's because of lifestyle choices. If you overeat you will still be fat no matter what job you work, but you'll be less fat and more healthy if you're moving all day.

If the grain runs off the edge of the back is that the end of the world? How much slant on the grain is allowable?

Left 40 dollars of raw chicken out overnight, it's covered in a chipotle pepper marinade. Was planning on cooking it for 8 hours on high heat and shredding it then cooking some more. I heard that cooking thoroughly will kill bacteria but not make it safe. I don't want to waste all that food, how much danger am I really in if I cook the hell out of this chicken?

When I was training on the logic section of jobtestprep I got 2 or 3 of the longer style logic questions( you know which ones I'm talking about). Well the actual test had significantly more than that. Be prepared to struggle with time on that section. Also I really suggest taking your break before that section, I didn't and it was very hard to properly focus while exhausted and the clocks ticking.

The search for my lost cat this week has been an emotional rollercoaster that really made me realize how much I cared for him. I had promised myself that if I got him back I would be an even better pet parent. But i found out earlier today that he had actually been dead since Monday, someone saw him on the street hit by a car early Monday morning. Really dreading taking down all the lost pet posters and cleaning up all his stuff out of the house.