I need a New Hobby!!!

[Digital Caveman]

I wouldn't ditch that bow yet.  If it's not bending I would sand it down and layer a hard piece of wood on top of it.

[bradsmith2010]

some woods are more challenging than others,,to recuce frustration and increase success,, maybe just straight hickory,,, or something that is more forgiving, I have made nice bows from hickory boards,, I did have failures with backed bows, the tiller has to be more exact,, i think your failures are more the challenging wood than what you are doing,, try to keep it simple at first,,,, like you said its heartbreaking to pu that much work in and have it fail,, thats why investing in a good osage stave might be worth it,,time spent ,, usually comes with a shooter ,, that will outlast most bows,,

[Morgan]

Board bows are 100% dependent on the care the log received from felling to dried planed lumber. Hardwood mills as a general rule supply wood workers and pallet makers, many hardwood mills also have an on site pallet company. They do not think twice about the handling of logs or lumber for our purposes. If you have a local mill, that deals with small orders, you can request to have a log cut the day it was felled to your specs and pay for all the lumber in the log. If not, then you are at the mercy of the distributor. I speak from first hand experience on the milling side that it is nothing to have a load of hardwood logs on the bunks for weeks or more waiting to be milled. They were off the ground but in the weather. For lumber purposes that is fine, for bows not so much. You cannot tell the difference in a finished board that was milled the day the log was cut and one that was milled weeks after sitting in the weather in a pile of logs, in fact one that is cut the day the tree is felled has a greater risk of Checking and warping than one that has been on deck for a while.

[George Tsoukalas]

I've never had a straight grained red oak board bow fail. No knots allowed no matter how small.
I've made lots of board bows. Jawge

[Digital Caveman]

I've never had one fail either, but that's probably because I caught them all fretting before they could blow. 

I have had way more bows fret than break.  Over the four years I've been making bows I think I've broken or exploded two ERC bows/staves, three purpleheart or maple/purpleheart bows, one red oak with excessive early wood, and a wacky white oak character bow with awful tiller.  I currently have only 4 finished bows without no detected frets including the one I completed just the other day.