I got an hour to work on getting the other sapwood stave bow floor tillered and braced up today in between my sap runs and boiling my syrup. Lots of sap running here now. Gotta get while the gettin is good. Anyway. The reflex of this wonky yew Bow ended up with about an inch more give or take then the heartwood only bow. Both as you recall had the same amount of sinew apply 65-70grams. The major difference with the way it was applied. The heartwood version had its sinew put on with tb3 and the sapwood version with standard sinew glue which I made here. I had back strung both for about 3 weeks monitoring the weight loss of each over this time. The heartwood bow is a little heavier in mass which is no surprise as it’s got more heartwood relative to the other. The interesting thing I’ve noticed about the two bows early on at brace is that after leaving both braced up for several hours to let thing settle nice the sapwood version retained more reflex. Both bows have been pulled to about 20” approx. both feel about the same weights. No draw scale at moment. As far as mass of both bows at the moment they are pretty close the same around 650grams. Both are about 60”ntn. The sapwood version is a semi hollow limb. I decided to do this as it had little more crown then I liked. This helps to even out the stresses a bit. Bend looks good and will continue tomorrow.
Observations,
Heartwood only bow—-
Prior to floor tiller and bracing 4.25” reflex
After braced for approx 4 hours immediately returned to 2” reflex
30 mins resting it crept back to 3.25” reflex
Sapwood bow—-
Prior to floor tiller and bracing just over 5” reflex
After braced for approx 4 hours immediately returned to 3.25” reflex
30 mins resting it crept back to around 5” reflex.
I half expected this out of the heartwood bow that had tb3 binding the sinew. The sapwood version held much more reflex so far.
I realize it’s still early on in the process but it kind of confirms my suspicions even this early. The benefits of using hide or sinew type glue as opposed to tb3 is noticeable even now. I’m sure both will be decent shooters. Will be interesting if it becomes noticeable in the way they shoot and on the cast of each.
Here’s some pics link below for better quality pics
https://imgur.com/a/E8BqOAM