HHB bow: super stiff for its size?

[Jon_W]

This is my 5th bow attempt, trying the "new" way of drying it over fire and then fire hardening hophornbeam. The wood is a pain to work! Right now I have this blank that is 67" tip to tip, 1-3/4" wide at the fades tapering to 5/8" tips. The belly thickness is about 3/8" and the bow is holding 2-3/4" backset right now with almost no tillering.

I am hoping for a bow between 45-50# at 28" draw. When I bend the stave against the ground the limbs maybe come straight before I decide to call it too much pressure.

My question is: what do I do? The bow has to be at least 90# right now if it were tillered. I don't want to end up with a bow that has a super thin belly as my previous bows that were wide and thin don't look great and certainly shot poorly. I want this one to come out right! Any suggestions?

Also, has anyone else dealt much with HHB? It splits terribly and doesn't react well to a drawknife as it'll catch the grain and pull up more than I wanted even though the knife was popping hairs (not shaving sharp, I'll admit).

[Pat B]

You could reduce the width to 1 5/8" to 1 1/2" to help loose weight if the limbs are getting too thin.

[willie]

fire hardening might be to dry/stiff?

do you have some air dried you can compare with or maybe measure how much weight it takes to go to straight and see if it takes less weight to do same in a week or so after reuptaking some moisture?

too dry might blow the back

[superdav95]

Willie. Here’s a hhb bow a did last year that I did heat treatment testing on.  It’s a great bow wood and very tough.  I find it tough to drawknife too and end up rasping a lot of it especially working with dry hhb.  Green it’s not so bad but still hard.  If it was me I would stay wide and go thinner.  You’ll see in my pics here that this bow is very thin but is a 55# bow at 28”. It’s about 66”ntn.  And maintains about same backseat reflex as yours now.  You can see how scorched I got the wood near the tip/ lever starts it’s dark brown.  It heat treats well and you’ll be pleased I think once you get some wood removed from the belly.  My hickory bow are similar after heat treatment.  I heat treat mine over hardwood coals for 2-3 hours depending on outside temp.  I make sure it’s a complete bake that penetrates through the wood almost to the back but not quite.  I’ve had great results with this.  Have a look hope this helps you with your decision.   Cheers and best of luck

[bownarra]

Before doing anything reduce the WIDTH!
You are wide enough for a 100# bow.....no wonder it is stiff!

[bownarra]

Also it has a bunch of reflex which will make it feel heavier than it actually is.
So reduce width and get it strung before measuring the weight.

[bassman211]

My last 8 bows are made from blue beech ( American hornbeam) , and hop hornbeam. I treated the wood start to finish in the same fashion, and have had much better end results with the blue beech, and don't know why other than maybe my skills with that particular wood. All 62 inch bows. 11/2 at the fades to half inch at the tips. I ended up with set, and belly frets with 2 of hh bows, and other 2 are just so, so bows when finished. On the other hand the blue beech bows came out  the way I wanted them to. Good reflex on all 4. Two of them are reflex deflex bows, and all 4 shoot the way they should. I have made white wood bows from every white wood I could get my hands on  locally using the same building methods including walnut, and birch, and have never encountered the problems I am having with hh. Maybe just my lack of skills, and of all the white woods my preference is elm.

[Badger]

 You can very easily get a very close idea what the current weight is using a long string. Use a string that hangs down loose not more than about 6". Pull it to 50# and see how far it bends. If it reads 50# at 10" that is about the same it would be if you braced it. Good way to estimate weight. You can continue to do that until you get a string on it. When it reads 50# at about 23" you might want to string it up.

[Jon_W]

Thanks everyone, I might thing the back profile some before continuing on. Hopefully that makes it more efficient too!

[organic_archer]

You’ll be fine with 1.5” width for a 45-50 pound bow. The hickory in my region grows dense and strong and is the closest thing I can compare with, but some turned into thin bows that still pulled 60+ pounds. It is what it is. Your bow looks like it could still lose a lot of thickness and be fine. You’ve got lots of reflex too, so the early draw weight will feel much higher than it really is.

Edit : x2 what Badger said. Long string and a scale is a trusty method.