Hickory board bow question pics added

[George Tsoukalas]

Not bad. Will make a nice light bow for your daughter. Make it as long as she is tall and 1 in wide and let the handle bend. No glue on pieces. At least that is what I do for my ladies. A backing of linen, burlap or silk is a good idea for piece of mind. Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/index.html

[k-hat]

I've made a few hick bows with grain like that with no twist to speak of.  If so it'll be minimal, and a little twist is actually not a big deal.  Lotsa self bows end up with quite a bit of prop twist and shoot just fine.

[cook1536]

I am making my daughters from a red oak board that is straight all the way through. This bow is gonna be mine and I am looking for 50# at 26" at 60" length overall. My stave bow i made last year had some prop twist and I used a heat gun and straightened it out real nice. Is that possible with this board bow? The reason for the question of ripping and re-glueing to itself was just to see if I did rip a piece off the belly and flip it where the run off is on opposite ends from each other, if that would make this board better? I do want to glue on overlays and a grip as I want a rigid grip with walnut inlay...if it is worth the trouble with this board.

[k-hat]

How wide/thick is it now?  It looks about 1.5" wide from the pic, but i'm really guessing.  If you're at 60" overall length, that means you'll end up with about 59" ntn, which I would say is a touch short.  You could go with 1.5" fades and a 4" grip for 7" handle area, which would give you exactly 52" of limb to work with.  You'll have to get all of it working and have great tiller.  I would go with a pyramid style, and i wouldn't worry about ripping a backing from it and reapplying it if it was just for the runoff.  If it IS under 2" wide I might change my recommendations!

[cook1536]

I meant to put that in the last reply. It is a 1x2 board so it is 1.5 wide. I am going for a pyramid style but want to leave the grip the width of the board and cut out a small sight window and arrow shelf, if that is not possible it will be a pyramid. I was going to try and leave the fades as wide as I can so it would as close to 1.5 as possible. I want a 4" grip but I have it drawn up with an 8" handle area. If this is not possible I will just look for another board.

[bubby]

60" ttt if it was me i'd go bendy handle, probably an eastern woodland style bow

[k-hat]

Yup agreed.  My recommendations are for a 2" board, at 1.5 i'd for sure go with a bendy handle as bubby and scott said.

[k-hat]

What'r y'alls thoughts on tempering?  if you had a 2" wide board, you'd probably trap it so it the back would start at about 1.5" and the belly at 2" to help even the compression/tension properties.  Tempering ( a good, deep, dark tempering) is effectively the same as trapping, but would be like widening the belly as opposed to narrowing the back.  So would a 1.5" wide hickory bow with a deeply tempered belly be equivalent to a 2" wide hickory bow with a trapped back?

Not trying to hijack here but it's seems pertinent and it's been on my mind lately