This bow has a bit of a story with it as well, sorry guys
. This is going to the sister of the boy receiving the osage elb. The girl loves archery but the stock youth bows don't fit her, so i hope this one is better.
I started this bow for myself back in the summer. It was a pyramid hickory bow from lumber. Didn't take into account the humidity in the summer, tillered it strung in one afternoon, and when i unstrung I had a 50ish# hick bow with 3-1/2" of set!!!! Ouch! Set it in the corner of shame. Revisited a few weeks later, cracked the tips tryna recurve it, set it back in the corner. A few weeks later I whacked off the tips (last 4" or so of each end), and set her on my reflex form and gave a good deep and dark tempering. held all the reflex, but didn't know what to do next with her (she was kinda short, didn't want a short bow), set'r back in the corner. Lady wants me to make a couple bows for her boy and her tomboy archery girl who ain't easy on a bow. Now i know what to do with this one.
So i took'r outta the corner one last time. Knowing she was way too heavy, i trimmed the 2" limbs down to 1.5", and cut about 1/3 of the thickness off. "This should get me in the right neighborhood to get started" I thought as i ATTEMPTED to string her. She was so taut she popped my temp nock right off. Now i'm curious. Turns out even with the reduction she was pulling 40+# at only 10 inches!!!! No telling how high she would have gone. Needless to say, i had a LOT of reducing to do. By the time i was done, all the tempered wood was gone, but she wound up with a flat profile nonetheless once the reflex was gone.
Lesson learned: Well-tempered hickory is a beast!
Ok, so here she is:
"Stinger"
20#@21"
54" ntn
Hickory with osage handle and tip overlays
Pyramid profile with slight thickness taper.
This one also came with a half dozen matching arrows.
Thanks for lookin!