After you get some experience with a few bows, if I were you I'd pick out a stave post pics of it on here with some details of those problem spots on here. I'm sure you will get some answers on how to remedy them . I'm knee deep into my first bow and with lots of good advice I might not even break it...Good luck on the path you have chosen, ERC makes a beautiful bow as you can see from all the wonderful bows posted on this site.