Whats the least set bow you ever made?

[sleek]

What bow have you made that has taken the least set for you?
How much set did it take?
What wood is it?
What is the draw weight?
What style bow, recurve, long bow etc?
What are it's rough dimensions?
Was the bow heat treated?
Any unique characteristics of the wood, high or low ring count for its species, unusually heavy/dense, anything Stan out at all, dark or irregular color etc?


I'm putting together the (hopefully) final steps on some research and I can't possibly make enough bows to get all the data I need, so I'm reaching out to yall for some final data points.

[Eric Krewson]

Here are my personal bows, the top one is a BBO so it doesn't count, I have since finished the handle.



The third one down from the top is the crown jewel, I had a 1 1/8" splinter of wood with 13 drying checks down the back that I filled with superglue, I didn't give it much hope but made a bow out of it as an experiment. This turned out to be a magic piece of osage, very heavy wood with thin early wood. I never heated the limbs to reflex them, they were dead straight when I started the bow and never changed. I was pretty stout when I made the bow so it is 62#@25", 62" NTN, much too strong for me to shoot now. I made the bow in 2002.

All of the other bows have been heat treated at some point in their life. It is a rare bow that I make than has much set, never more than an inch after years of use, all are gizmo tillered, it works for me. I made the third bow from the bottom 12 years ago, it was my go-to bow for all these years; it probably has 100K arrows through it; it has a little set but is still my best shooter. All of the other bows are 1 /14" wide, 64" NTN, I dropped the poundage on a few of them as I got older.

[sleek]

I am VERY impressed with that 3rd one you highlighted Eric. That must have been so dense it would sink in water, a specific gravity if 1 or higher. I can't fathom how on earth that would have worked out otherwise. And I'm certain the thin early wood helped. I'm certain that bow will be outside of what my formula would calculate, but for science, can you give me the dimensions of the working limb of that bow?

Also can I get clarification on how wide the others are? I'm certain 1/14 is a typo.

[Eric Krewson]

I went out and measured it; The top limb is 1 1/4" wide at the end of the fade, 1 1/8" at mid limb tapering to 1/2" tips. The bottom limb is 1 1/8" wide at the end of the fades and has the same mid limb taper to 1/2" tips, the limb width difference is probably just what I had to work with in this splinter of wood.

The back is high crowned so the stave must have been off a smaller tree. The belly profile is very rounded from the fade to the tips, no flat spots. The limbs are 5/8" thick at the fades and taper to a thickness of 1/2" at the nocks. The limb belly profile for the last 6" is completely round, more like an ELB.