starting a hickory bow,,

[bradsmith2010]

I put the bow on long string backwards and lightly heated reflex into the whole bow,,
its holding bout 2 inches reflex now,, going to take a bit more wood off and heat again tomorrow and go for 3 inches reflex and then sinew it,,
I heated it over the coals made from sacred mammoth tusk, ok just kidding, I used a butane torch,,   no caul just pulled backwards,,it has nice even reflex,,

[Allyn T]

That's a good call, regular mammoth tusk just don't get hot enough 

[simson]

looking good so far
Nice truck btw., would like to have something like that.

[bradsmith2010]

two nice hickory bows strung backwards with the sinew drying,, one has been on since Dece 6th, as promised I will push the dry time a little shorter than some ,, just to see what happens,, will keep you posted,, they are both holding reflex without the string,, so hope they will hold some when tillered out to shoot,,dont have a specific draw weight or length, will just shoot through the chrono as I go and stop when bending even and shooting good, I have a goal as far as cast goes,, so will see how they go,,I left the tip of my shoes for scale,,   I may give one away if they turn out,, but will keep the best one for myself and tell the other person Im giving him the best one,, right,, and exaggerate just a bit, on fps with he bow I give away,, just round it up a bit,,like if its shooting 162 Ill just say getting close to 170,,,

[Allyn T]

Looking good   

[bradsmith2010]

got a scale for Christmas,, the wider bows weighs 22.9 oz and the more narrow bow weighs 19.8,, I looked in Volumne 4,, and both are above suggested mass weight for a 50# bow,, but since they are a bit heavy to string, I think when I start to tiller I will get closer to what would be average mass weight on both, may have to side tiller a bit on the wide one, but not gonna do that till I get to 20 inches and see how they bending but, will be intersting to shoot them through the chrono, and see if the mass weight difference translates in to the cast, or taking set or all that,,bow making stuff that drives us crazy,,

[Allyn T]

It'll be very interesting to see. I wonder how the weight of sinew will factor in? Oh man new scale, gonna be weighing everything : )

[bradsmith2010]

   well I got this bad boy strung tonight,, I thought it felt a little heavy, the string made a really high ping, so I weighed it on my new digital christmas present scale, and it was 50#@14  ,, well if I did the math right that would put it right about 85# at 28, and 90#@30inches, about,,
well thats too much, I unstrung it ,, had a couple places looked a little hingy,,  not too bad , but figured I take the weight down quite a bit,, tomorrow,, u can see its got a bit of curves and character too it,, making the tiller a bit hard to see, but with a fresh eye I hope to even it out,
I put the sinew on it December 6,,,probably gonna take a few days to tiller it, but I really misjudged the amount of wood I needed or didnt expect it to be that heavy,, the bow weighs about 22 oz now,,  looking at Badgers chart would be ok for 80# but if I go down to 50 it says about 12 to 18 0z depending on how much bend in handle,, Im just trying to get in the ball park of that,,cause not sure if the chart is for sinew backed bows,,
   when I get it bending little better,, so it dont look awful, I post some pics of the bow strung and pulled to 50# unbraced and all that,,
   I had painted the belly, didnt get any belly cracks,, yet,, well and it didnt blow up when I strung it ,, so far so good,,

[Allyn T]

That's a heavy dang bow, glad the wood surprised you or maybe the sinew was super strong!