Next week. And I'll start another thread for that so Sleek will be freed of my design comments 
What you did here is just wonderful, Thank you. Your contribution surely deserves its own thread. As for this thread, it is clear that Sleek got his answer early on. Time to sum up here, if I may.
The surest and easiest way to make "sharp hooks" is to boil the stave tips. But with enough skill, they can be made by steam and even dry heat, of course.
The issue of no liftoff is a read herring and moot, because nobody make such a bow or even saw one.
joachimM tried to show us that the "sharp hooks" need to be rather short to be effective. So far as I can tell, that is the opinion of most experts here anyway. We are not sure whether such a short recurve bow is no better than a straight bow or not.
Higher draw weight would account for the increased arrow speed therefore there is no advantage one way or the other
If we make the draw weight constant, not the draw length, the conclusion by joachimM might not be pertinent.
There seems to be a misunderstanding of what we were mainly trying to test here. It wasn't about big hooks versus small hooks, it was about degree of hook of the same length of recurve.
Lift off versus no lift off.
Are you sure you didn't also draw the shorter bow further relative to length as well? It looks like it is being bent more.
Nobody makes a recurve bow with no liftoff. The issue might be which is better: earlier liftoff or later liftoff. And that question was only partially answered by the experiment of joachimM, as pointed out by Marc above.
As the original issue is how to make "sharp hooks" safely, PatM's question is somewhat more pertinent in this thread. The question is what would be the most useful "sharp" angle of recurved tips. Less than 90 degrees or even more than 90 degrees or 90 degree is simply the best? IMHO it would depend on the length of the recurved tips.
As for using PVC models for experiment, it does not bother me but if it does bother some members here, I think we can use bamboo strips. Most importantly, we need to agree on exactly what is the question that needs to be answered by the suggested experiment. I eagerly wait for more experiments by joachimM in his own threads with his own issues. I sure hope he does an experiment to answer the question of PatM. Thanks in advance.
