The post by Pappy of his hickory recurve got me thinking about how durable hickory is. I posted that I slapped together a kid's bow out of scraps I had laying around, and that I had tillered it out to my draw length with no string follow. Well, that's not true. I checked it again, and it took 1/4" of follow after I pulled it to 28". I think it springs back to zero over time. I think I also said it was a three foot bow. Wrong again, it's 51" nock to nock. Guess my memory is going in my old age, sorry. I figured I'd post a few pics though, mostly to illustrate what you can get away with on hickory. The limbs are slats that I ripped off the belly of my first hickory bow. The rings are violated up and down the back. I butt spliced the limbs and applied a patch over the splice for safety, but it probably wasn't necessary. The handle, splice patch and tip overlays are of birch I had leftover from my birch bow attempts. One limb is stiffer than the other, so I chose that for the bottom. I might scrape the sides off that one down to even it out, but it seems to shoot OK the way it is. It was a quicky after all. It was glued up with Titebond II, and finished with linseed oil and wax. The pics are of the bow braced at 5", drawn 18", drawn 28", and unbraced right after the 28" pic. There is also a pic of the back, showing all the ring violations. What set it has, it took as I was taking the overdrawn pic, and it is entirely near the handle. I think I'll take it back out with a little heat, and just never draw it back that far again. By the way, It draws 8# at 18".
Julian
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