I'm confused. Nothing in MY experience tells me hickory likes to splinter. Rather the opposite, I thought.
Maybe cut yourself a little 1/2" x 1/4" sample from a corner of the board you don't need, about 10-12" long, and bend it to see what happens. Again, to me, wenge seems stiff, springy, but brittle, even in compression.
To put it another way, where most woods would take some set or even fret a little on the belly, wenge will be perfectly fine up to that point and then just CRACK, splintered back and crumpled belly.
We'd love to see pictures, though. And, back to basics from the TBB I, if you make it long enough and wide enough for the draw weight, you can make it work.
