To Heat Treat or not...that is the question (Elm)

[330bull]

Hello,

I have a longbow I just built and it has ~1.5" of string follow.  Here are the SPECS:

- 60" tip to tip
- ~52# @ 26"
- ~1.5" of string follow
- Handles and limbs are all 1-1/8" wide and eventually fade out at the last 8" to 7/16" wide tips
- Handles are also ~11/16" thick
- Limbs are 5/8" thick nearly all the way out
- This is a bend through the handle bow.
- Limb cross section is rectangular (flat flat flat with no crown)

Since I have only shot ~30 arrows through it I was thinking of heat treating the belly over a caul and trying to remove the string follow and give it a little pop.

What do you think?  What are the pros & cons to heating and bending over a caul and can I hurt the wood?

Thanks in advance!  Joe

[DanaM]

What kind of wood Joe? I'm guessing its Vine Maple, if so I finally made a bow from
the wood I got from ya a long while back. Anyway I don't think its to late to heat treat
and add some reflex to to it. VM seemed to benifit nicely from a good belly toastin.
Then again 1.5" of string follow ain't to bad either

[ricktrojanowski]

Joe- In the TBB vol 4 Marc St. Louis has a great chapter on heat treating.  I believe in the chapter he said that he experimented  tempering  the bellies of bows that had been shot and got good results. So I think you could probably go for it.   Maybe Marc will chime in on this one.

[Marc St Louis]

As long as it's a selfbow then go for it