First hickory longbow how to make it take less set?

[lukelawrence171]

Great shooting bow just took it to a 3d shoot so its a little dirty anybody know how to keep it from taking set it is taking a little too much

[BOWMAN53]

I would say heat treat the poop out of it but if your already shooting it then the best thing todo is just make another one. On the next one heat treat it at floor tiller and then again 2/3s through the tillering process. Almost all the  bows i make are hickory and they all love a dark belly.

[BOWMAN53]

A better tillered bow would help too, your outer limbs are real stiff.

[Newindian]

Proper seasoning, design, tillering, heat treating, and treatment (don't over draw ext,)

[mikekeswick]

Yes the outer limbs are too stiff putting too much stress on the inner limbs.
Another couple of tips are trapping the back and heat treating the belly.
However the most important lesson is get a perfect tiller early on in the process.

[Del the cat]

I took a cheap nasty Hickory ELB and tweaked and tuned it up to see what it would do.
Most of the improvement was heat treatment combined with removing the set.
Here is the blog entry. the next entry gives the results.
http://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/big-bow-detail-and-hickory-challenge.html
Del

[briarjumper12]

And keep it dry.  Hickory loves to soak up moisture. A good finish goes a long way but I actually store mine in a hotbox most of time. Can't really get hickory too dry in my experience.

[lukelawrence171]

Thanks guys ill try heat treating it a little better next time I dident Finish it yet  and it was raining so I don't think that that helped very much