Hello everyone, I'm relatively new to bowyering (I made 3 hazel bows so far - two of them, despite having lifted a splinter, are barely shootable) and need some advice.
I managed to acquire a nice yew tree, split it and... it turned out it had a wonderfully even propeller twist down the entire length. I wrote propeller twist, but it actually more closely resembles a screw than a propeller. The grain rotates 180 degrees from one end to the other! One might say that this slightly screwed my plans, pardon the wording.
Anyhow, how would one go about straightening such a twist, at least a bit? Steam? However this is not the main question, as I just barely squeezed the outline of a rather narrow longbow into one quarter of the tree. (I still have a workable halve and a totally warped quarter left). However, in order for the bow to actually fit in and not follow the twist that much, I had to compromise and choose a not so straight part of the trunk.
Now the part where one tip will hopefully be one day (an area of about 15 cm), has a distinct reflex (about 3 cm (1,2 inch)) while the part where the other tip will be (again, this even bend takes about 15 cm of the stave from, and including, the tip) has just as much deflex. How will (or should) this cantankerous feature affect the tillering process and the final shape of the bow itself?
Should the limbs bend evenly at full draw, or should the part with reflex stay slightly straighter?
