Hickory Longbow rework

[gstoneberg]

One of my hog hunting friends from down here asked if I'd fix a longbow he'd had made for him some time ago.  He brought it over and I discovered it was a hickory backed hickory board laminate, a full 72" long.  It had taken quite a bit of string follow.  He wanted a shorter bow and lower draw weight because of a shoulder problem.  I was afraid to try and take out the string follow by removing belly wood and tempering because of the backing.  So, I decided to try and heat in some gentle recurves.   We cut off 3" a side taking it down to 66".   I was pleasantly surprised how nicely the hickory took heat.  One tip lifted a splinter on the belly and the other one delaminated slightly on one side.  I was able to grind off both problems.  I had it at 55lbs, but he wanted less and in the end, we took it to 47lbs@27" which he seemed happy with.  I sadly neglected to take a before pictures (partly because I was pretty sure it wouldn't work).  I did get a couple pictures of Bill shooting his first arrows out of it.





Sorry about the swimming pool hose, I didn't even realize it was in the picture until Bill had taken the bow home.  

I do like to see old bows get new life.

George

[Buckeye Guy]

Looks like a good fix to me!!
Guy

[Del the cat]

Lookin' good. 47# is still a pretty respectable weight.
What was it before???
Del

[PEARL DRUMS]

It worked, it worked! Nice one George.

[ErictheViking]

nice rework, now your buddy can shoot comfortably again.

[Pat B]

Nice redo, George. I like those chameleon fletching on the arrow too. Red before drawing and blue at full draw! 

[Bevan R.]

That must be a new 'draw check' system. Your breath changes the fletch color.

[gstoneberg]

LOL

Good catch.  35-40 are blue in the test kit (and 5/16ths), 40-45 are red.  Dang phone won't take pictures fast enough to get both pre-draw and full draw on the same shot.  Other than that it takes pretty nice pics and high res too.

I'm not sure what the draw weight was, I texted Bill and asked him, but haven't heard back yet.  Edit: Bill responded that it was 55-60lbs.  I'm sure it was lower than original after all the string follow it had taken.  First bow like that I've seen that had no markings on it?  He also didn't like the length of the bow nor the huge handle it originally had.  I took back an inch of working limb at both ends of the handle and it still looks like a big handle.  It had been doing all its bending in the outer half of the limbs.  I left the string follow in and then bent the tips to be even with the handle.  Made it kind of D/R looking.  Seems to shoot well.  Got a little more positive tiller than I'd like, I'm hoping it evens out as he shoots it.  Otherwise I'll have to take a little off the lower limb.  Looks OK in the picture, but not at brace.

Bill told me his parents were field archery champions back in the 50s, but gave it up before he was old enough to shoot.  He brought his night vision rifle (AR in 7.62x39) over for me to look at.  I want one almost like it but in 300blackout or 7.62x40WT.  Of course, we fed him before he left, venison roast, cream corn, potatoes, carrots, onions and gravy.  Had it again for lunch.  Good stuff.

George