Flipping tips?

[Shiloh]

Hey all, I've been thinking lately and decided I'm going to try a mild working recurve as my next project. My cousin loves traditional archery, but she's not really a fan of longbows and tends to gravitate towards the recurves. Her birthday is in a few months, so I figured that gives me enough time to experiment and practice a little.

I'm stll not in a position where I can easily get full-sized tree staves, so I was hoping to use boards, most likely red oak or maple.

-If I thinned the tips to about 1/2" thickness and left them relatively wide, would I be able to get away with dry heat?

-I read in the TBB that on working recurves, the bends will pull themselves out unless the bow is sinew-backed. Is that completely true?

-With a 2" wide limb, would a 66" to 70" ttt length be acceptable?

Thanks!

[BOWMAN53]

Soak for atlease 8 hours then boil for one hour. That the best way to not mess up and lift a splinter.

[bow101]

I think the one recent issue of Primitive Archer had an article about bending using tin foil and a soaked towel. Made sense to me.

[bushboy]

In regards to working recuves pulling out ,marc st louis said to really douce the recurves in heat while being clamped in place. I mean don't set it on fire ,but slighly black is ok the way I read it. Your gonna lose some ,but not all! Have fun!

[Joec123able]

It will be hard to get working recurves in a wooden bow because they will try to straighten out

[mikekeswick]

Forget working recurves. To make them really work (to gain something in performance) they will have to be wide and thin - therefore heavy and slow. You can do it with fiberglass but wood....well not really and it won't help the performance.
I presume you haven't made many bows? If that is the case make yourself a few pyramid bows first. Then come back on here and ask how to bend recurves in.

[Pappy]

Leave the tip a little thicker where the bend will be and flip the last 6 inches or so,that's what I call flipping the tips, not really a working recurve,they don't usually pull out of mine,They just work a little right at full draw. 2 inches would be plenty wide,and depending on draw length on the tip to tip length,if she has a short draw I would go 66 and maybe not quite that wide. Most ladies don't have a long draw and the weight is fairly light also.  You will need to know that before you start,at least I would.
   Pappy

[Shiloh]

Ahhhh...okay, that's what I was talking about. Not necessarily a full working recurve, just the flipped tips.

I've made about ten bows up to this point (some more succesful than others) so I figured I might as well try.

[mwosborn]

I have flipped the tips on a few - with dry heat I used veg oil heating well and bending slowly.  Also used a strip of 1/8" metal to helped prevent splinters.  I left my tips a bit thick and then thinned them down after flipping them.  Some have turned out well and others I have raise a splitter and then had to deal with that.  Give it a try!

[dwardo]

Its been an age since i used steam to re-align a handle or flip tips, i usually just use dry heat.
Last night after a failed dry heat flip last week i decided to use steam. Welll I cant believe i stopped using it in the first place. Steamed for 45 minutes and it just slipped into place. No standing there with the gun for half an hour making sure it doesnt burn. Will still be using dry heat for adding reflex and mild curves but anything over that and its steam all the way.