I visited James two Decembers ago and did some hunting with him for a few days. We didn't build much in the way of bows as it was hunting season but I did manage to get two bows out of his scrap pile. A trilam with a crack in some paduak in the riser and a bamboo recurve with some twist in it. I filled the paduak on the trilam with some loctite and then set it aside for over a year. I had always thought maybe the best way to fix it was to cut it in half and glue in some new wood and make it a take down.
Well I finally got to doing that this last week. Ended up cutting a "V" out of the riser and epoxying in some new material. Not the prettiest glue lines but I was hoping it would still be a good shooter. I brought the bow with to Haiti this last week and worked on getting the take down sleeves on and got the bow braced while there. Man it was a strong bow to brace so I didn't leave it braced long and yesterday after getting home was able to tiller it some more and get the weight down more into a manageable range. I am bringing this bow with to Congo DR this next week to give to a friend I am helping there. He just turned 60 and is a hunter who grew up in Congo. Lots of great stories and experiences.
lots of reflex (no its not strung backwards that is grout lines on the floor).
Lost some of the reflex after bracing
Ugly glue lines of spliced in riser section.
Bamboo backing, Ipe core and purple heart belly
Today got it shooting. Hits very hard but I was really impressed how accurate it was. These two arrows were from 25 paces.
tiller seems pretty good. Going to narrow the tips a bit and maybe get the mid lower limb to bend a tad bit more to match the top limb
