Rawhide backed black locust, was gonna be one of my trade bows. Had it bending well at 40# at 18" last week when I heard a tick.
Looked over the back and found a 1/16" crack through a small and seemingly clean pin knot. Went ahead and rawhide backed it
last tue. for safety. Cleaned up tiller and exercised it many times at 18' of draw, then 19" several times and all looked good.
Then pulled to 20" and kaboom off the tree it flew. Guess is it was just a brittle piece of locust with a weak spot at that knot?
Could be I got it to dry? Could of been my tillering, don't know? Two sisters from this split survived to finished bows but both lifted splinters on the back that had to be wrapped , one of those was in the same area as this one. Last pic shows belly side of the evil
pin when the tension failure occured
Didn't know rawhide would snap in two like that.
I did start a second bow for the trade but it looks to be coming in under weight
Sooooo.... back to square one I guess