thank you so much to all of you, i wasnt expecting such a warm and enthusiastic greeting! as for the tips, they are boiled for 30 minutes and then bent with one of three jigs - i have one that is a gentle, longer bend, another that is a very hard, short, 90 degree angle, and a happy medium in between. this one was done with the most severe one, which i generally only use for osage and occasionally for my black cherry, which bends like rubber when you boil it. it is signed in ultra fine tip sharpie, but i need to find a more durable medium, as the sharpie immediately dissolves away when i try to coat it with anything. it is relatively light in the hand, but the spacious "flatbow style" handle gives it a little more weight than my other 53"osage recurves.