So this is the bow that I had already asked about the bent tips that had pulled out. Since none of my few bows have broken so far (I messed some up in the making but no breaks) I wanted to NOT overbuild this one.
After I got advice here on the boards, I bent the tips with steam. Since the 45 degrees from the first bend pulled out I bent about 90 this time, the toasted it and let it sit in the clamp over night.
I put it back on the tiller and of course, it is much stiffer now. I strung and unstrung it a couple of times, did some minor tillering. The tips hold just nicely. So thanks for the good advice!
But now I feel I get to the limits of this piece of wood. When I lay it on the belly and measure from tip to tip, it's 55", at the fades the lower limb is 2" wide, the upper 2.2". it weighs a tad over 17 ounces.It's maple (platanoides), and to my inexperienced eye it feels like good, solid wood, not very hard, but of good substance.
The draw in the pic is 18", it's 30# there.
So:
- can I even get 26" draw lenght from this?
- at what weight?
- should I tiller the curves or leave them alone?
Also, as you may notice, the bow is very assymetrical, the arrow pass is right in the centre. I always make the bottom limb shorter, but also, I always run into the same uncertainties because of that.
- should the lower limb bend with the same radius as the upper, or with a smaller radius?
- to what extent can I make this handle bend?
I'm sure gonna learn tons on this build...
