Hickory-Short-Sinew build... Tiller time! (pics page 5)

[BowEd]

It's a matter of knowing your wood species making bows.+1 on what gut stated.Short cuts making bows many times lead to failures with some types of woods.The most tolerant of impatience/short cuts/bad tiller etc. is osage.
Other woods can perform and be just as good as osage and even better if given the right design/procedure and patience.

[Fox]

never had a hickory chrysall... you got to get them below 13%.. 12 is top... no lower than 9... very important.. hickory will basically till itself when moisture is above 13... causing you to over strain the bow and not even know it.. my thoughts are your bow soaked up too much moisture during the sinew process and you didn't give it enough time to dry to the above %..your sinew may have appeared dry but the wood wasn't..  sinew and hickory are like oil and water down south.. I killed a sinew hickory bow basically the same way you have except it never made it off the tree .. lesson learned and it was basically because the wood wasn't dry enough.. I'd get that sinew back when it fails.. and it will eventually... if you try that combo again.. bring it inside to dry and give it a minimum of 3 months... sorry to hear that buddy.. I know you put the work in it...as for how long it might last my guess would be around 200 shots .. it will start to take set and you know she is on the way out..  gut

Thanks for the input gut.... although that would kinda suprise me if it was mc.... its still in the 20% humidity here, and my MC meater was reading that it was below 7% so I was a little worried that id't be too dry! haha well I coulda been wrong then cause I didn't think I overstrained it so maybe my mc is wrong?      but yeah most of my hickory has chrysalled, although the ones that did I know it was my fault, and the ones that didn't I knew I did right and they are shooting great... the ones that chrysalled ...not so much


Yeah, bow Ed I was hoping I could get the sinew to keep this one together, apparently not though  .     I did feel like I was patient as it took me more than a week to tiller cause I wanted to nail it... apparently, I went wrong somewhere though.    Yes osage seems to be pretty awesome stuff, although its hard to come by here, and the last to osage bows have been sub-par pieces one even rawhide backed and it still blew, and the other I think I just made a really stupid mistake of bracing too soon .     just dug out a fairly nice piece that I have to make a bow for someone else out of... but reailized I might be able to belly split something for me .....

anyway thanks for all the help guys, sorry for the long ramble 

[gutpile]

our humidity is 40% today... I highly doubt I could get hickory below 9% even leaving it inside for a year..lol.... I would question your meter ... I find that hard to believe after sinewing and less than 3 weeks it is below 7%.. but I don't know because I basically live in a sauna...gut

[BowEd]

I'll bite here......In olden times native americans hung sinewed bows upside down high at least 10' above the fire in their teepee.I'm sure they had other pieces of wood partially made for a bow there.Bundled arrow shafts too.Very insightful way of curing and bug proofing their sinewed bows.I've never done that in my teepee but should try it sometime.
You did everything properly before sinewing.but thought you were a bit heavy before sinewing.That's ok though.You put on at least 1100 grains of sinew on 58" length of bow.I'm sure it was at least 1/8" to 3/16" thick dried thickness.In less than 3 weeks you were shooting it.
To me that's just not enough time to cure.Thickness of that much will be gaining poundage a year later yet.Not really drying in that sense but curing forming bonds.To me a minimum of 3 months wait of curing before bending.
I find that for hickory because it likes a heat treatment so well the same amount of reflex can be gotten or from an epoxied laminated bow with bamboo without near the wait and it's dry.You put out a good effort all prior to the waiting part.
You are a good proponent of these natural material bows.Things will come around for you.
Many will disagree but I wait 10 days after heat treating a bow before bending.Stiffer sections like the tips heated or corrected not so.