leaving bark on a hickory bowstave

[luke the drifter]

i have a pignut hickory stave about 55 inches long.  i top-scraped the outer bark and left what was underneath.  i thought about trying to use this as backing because of the unusual design that is left.  would that be a problem?  i am looking for a 40 to 50lbs bow.  i am in the the roughing out stage of the stave and have left myself some room for error just in case the advice i get is againist.

[George Tsoukalas]

You can leave some of the inner bark on but take off what you can without violating a ring. Take your time. This bow making is our hobby. No need to rush. Have fun. Jawge

[cowboy]

After you take the bark off of hick's there is some cambium left that you can scrape and sand off or leave. There are also some little dips and hollow's that look kinda neat. Here's one that I stained with somethinorother and left the low spots darker.

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[Lombard]

I took the outer bark off some Hickory, and tried to leave the inner bark on, as you, I liked how it looked. Unfortunately during tillering that wonderful looking bark popped off with a terrible crack, that left the bow severely wimpy. Ended up making a youth bow out of it.

Cowboy cool effect on that bow, and I like the diamonds too.