Hickory bow that I have to call "Reborn". 57" nock to nock, 1/5/8 wide limbs, 17 oz, B-50 string, 45# @ 27".
Last spring, I made a 64" long hickory flat bow from some scrap wood that I picked up at a local hickory mill. It came in light, pulling only about 30lbs. It had a dismal looking shot in profile - almost three inches of set. I left it in the corner of my shop and kept eyeing it off and on for a while. It should have been better! Well after six months of thinking about it, I finally got around to tweeking it up a bit and I am glad that I did. I piked the limbs down and then gave the bow a serious heat treating. I hung some heavy C-clamps and a couple of 18 inch pipe wrenches off the tips just for weight and let the heat gun work it's magic. This left the bow reflexed a couple of inches. Hickory is notoriously hard for me to recurve, so I steamed each tip for about an hour and recurved them. I set it aside to get over all this heat induced torture for a few days and then retillered it. I left it strung for a day with a 7 1/2 brace height and then shot it in, drawing the bow to 28" several times. I unbraced it fearing the worst and to my great delight, it stayed dead flat. Heat treating, piking, reflexing, and recurving all combined to transform a "DOG" into a fine shooting bow. Here she is - Reborn.
