Oh NO!!!!

[Deerhunter21]

I left my bow strung for 24 hrs by accident…. 

I feel so stupid!!! It gained a good bit of set… now I’m just waiting to see if some of it will spring back…. Hopefully it didn’t lose much weight otherwise the arrow I’m trying to tune to this bow I’m will be all off…..

[Del the cat]

It'll come back, may take a couple of days.
It might be interesting to measure the set every 6 hours or so and sketch a graph
Del

[Eric Krewson]

I made a bamboo osage bow that was a real dog, a very poor performer. Out of desperation I heat treated the limbs, this transformed the bow into a jewel of a bow, it lost all its string follow and as far as I know has retained its performance to this day, someone else owns it.

You may be at this crossroad, time to heat treat to get your bows performance back.

[Morgan]

I’ve not left one strung for that long, but did shoot a poorly sealed hackberry bow in hot, very high humidity weather for about 3 hours one day. Draw got spongier and spongier.  It did not recover on its own. Wired it to a slightly reflexed caul and closed it up in my truck for a couple of days and re toasted the belly and it was almost good as new. Draw weight was back Maybe 100% idk, but it felt softer after that though the draw weight was back. Haven’t shot it a whole lot after that so can’t speak to longevity.

[bassman211]

I stick a bow in a vise  were the fade starts on one that does that, and hang a 10 to 20 lb weight at the tip ,and  deep heat treat belly. That will get them snapping back to unstrung profile a lot of times.

[Deerhunter21]

Ok… it looks like heat treat is the answer. The thing I am REALLY bummed about is that this bow is the reserve bow I made for the trade. I know people send arrows with their bow sometimes so I was trying to do that too….

I just hope this bow gets back the quality it had before I left it strung. It may not be my prettiest bow, but I’ll be darned if it ain’t the best shooter.

[Hawkdancer]

Shooting the best greatly outweighs looking the best by a long shot (pun intended!) !
Hawkdancer

[Deerhunter21]

One limb treated

[bownarra]

Go darker...much darker! Like a medium to dark brown.

[TimBo]

I would guess you straightened it more than treated it with that color, which probably means it will just go right back to where it was or worse.  I agree that it should be darker.  Go slow and get a good deep treatment.  (I am assuming it didn't spring back much or any before heating?)

[Don W]

I made a holder for the heat gun and I set a timer for the amount of time at the heat and distance (usually about 3 minutes) each time the timer goes off I move the gun and reset the timer (I use my cell phone timer)
I advance the gun a little better than half the distance of the black circle. This way I don't have to hold the gun, I can do other things as long as I stay close.

[Morgan]

I made a holder for the heat gun and I set a timer for the amount of time at the heat and distance (usually about 3 minutes) each time the timer goes off I move the gun and reset the timer (I use my cell phone timer)
I advance the gun a little better than half the distance of the black circle. This way I don't have to hold the gun, I can do other things as long as I stay close.

This. Marc St Louis has a section in one of the tbb’s that has his set up for this that works great. If that stick has never got a deep heat treat, expect it to gain some draw weight, and you may have to re-tiller a bit. If it ain’t getting quite dark, you aren’t getting much if anything out of the heat.

[Don W]

I've had a couple hickory gain so much weight I had to go back to a long string because I couldn't string them.

[Morgan]

Best thing about the heat gun holder is that I’ve gotten where I HT the belly while I work on another stave, if not it seems to take forever to get one treated and I get in a hurry with it. I’ve gotten much better and more consistent results with a holder that rests on my cauls.

[SLIMBOB]

I’m a “by hand” guy. I have experimented with different holders, I just feel more in control of the outcome when I am holding the heat gun.