As Jawge says, how do we know if we build a perfect bow if we don't know what perfect is. Looking at bows from the 1920's through the 1940's it is clear to me that we had to first catch up to them. Those guys knew what made a bow tick. They understould skinny tips, reflex, deflex, recurves and everything else we are doing today. I think heat treating might be the only real addition our group has made.
My belief is that the more I understand about the wood the more challenging a build becomes. I play around with the high tec stuff at the desk, but when I get ready to build a bow its all be feel and sight just like everyone else.
Each style has a slightly different potential, some focus on higher energy storage, some focus more on efficiency, some focus on light arrows and some on heavy arrows. There is nothing untraditional about knowing as much as you can about something you are trying to build. Once we decide what we want to build the skill comes in with our ability to monitor and control the condition of the wood as we tiller it out to final draw weight. They have done it this way for thousands of years and thats why they call it a craft or a trade, there simply are some things to learn to become accomplished at it.
