Bowed forestock

Hi,I am dealing with a piece of wood that bowed on me when I cut out section of wood that is below the barrel, the area for the ramrod Chanel.The bow starts about 32 inches forward the breech plug and continues to the end of the barrel (42").It bows down 3/16 of an inch in that distance. Does anybody have any input on how I should approach the rest of the shaping of the fore stock? Should I straighten it by clapping the barrel into the Chanel and then shape the forestock or should I shape the forestock with the bow in the "relaxed" position? I am building a Bedford and the forestock is very thin, I can't inagine the bow distorting the barrel. Then again I am only guessing.Thank you for any input, Shawn Blake

I have an unfinished long stock which is warped to the left about an inch off of being truly straight.. when I need to I just bend it back to straight without any problems. Maybe some day I'll get around to finishng it. When it's permanently pinned into the stock there will be no problems with it.

You could just work around the bend. Or you might try to steam it out. Using an electric heat pad set on high , wrap the bend in a damp towel and then the heat pad and let it cook a half hour or so. Then quickly take the barrel out and put it into the stock and clamp it into place. This will take most if not all the bend. There might be some spring back so you could still have to deal with a little bend but it won't be much.

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I heat the forestock and the barrel to almost too hot to touch, put the barrel in the channel and zip tie the forestock to it tightly and continue to heat the wood with a heat gun. I keep the heat gun moving and don't scorch the wood. I let the wood cool and the bend should be gone. I only did this once on a precarve that still had 1/2" of wood around the forestock, my 30 degree downward dog leg came right out and stayed out.

Any kind of heat will do, dry or wet. Both ways cause the lignin in the wood, a kind of plastic that holds wood together, to soften enought to let the wood bend. I prefer wet heat as it eleminates any chance of scorching. I like the idea of heating the barrel. That and steam ought to work slick.

Eric knows from making bows.

Off topic but I do a lot of bending;
My last project was fixing a broken tip on a world champs bow that she got careless with while unstringing.

Exactly what I needed ! Thanks.