lesken you can leave the inner bark on but it will have a crack every 1/4 inch or so , and be prepared to have mini heartattacks while tillering cause it will creak and pop the whole time. i have built three with bark on (inner bark) and they stop popping after a while, trust me its not breaking just inner bark has no tension. what i do now is scrape the bark off with my pocket knife and just leave a few islands of inner bark in the low spots . gives you a nice back . yes i was refering to back to belly thickness on the 3/4 inch , this is for my bendy handle bows , and never more than 60 inches long . if your going longer you may wanna leave an inch thick . you can strap to a reflex caul while drying ,to each his own , most ive done this way goes away while tillering , with any wood , heat or steam would be a better choice for adding reflex. which brings me to another thought , CM will steam well , and dry heat works with it also for increasing compression strength. CM will usually split with ease , if you have any issues with it not wanting to split straight , make a 6 inch cut in one end where you wanna split it and then split from there .hope this has been helpful
