It took a little over an inch. Not a real heavy weight - I think it draws just a shade under forty pounds. White oak is tension strong as any kind of wood you can think of and if you give it a good toasting of the belly, it makes a good bow. I have only used white oak staves and have never seen a need to back one. I got on a white oak kick for a while and thought it was the best bow wood in the world. After a while though, I saw that, for me anyway, it does seem to take some set, after a lot of shooting. Our woods are full of osage orange, and it really doesn't get any better than that to me. I don't have to heat temper it, unless i just want to, it doesn't want to take as much set, it lasts forever, it is pretty much impervious to weather, it is a beautiful yellow color that just gets better with age, it is tension strong as hell, ...... it , it.... oh, I forgot. This post is about white oak. My bad.
