As its notorious for, if you need to get breaking a stave or two out of your system, give unbacked black cherry a shot. I wanted to give an unbacked cherry of decent weight another shot. I was aiming for 50-55# at 27" with this one. It was an ELB design to put stress on the belly as opposed to he back. 72" nock to nick and about 1 3/8" at the handle. The needle on the scale touched just over 50# at 24" when she let go. I could see that te left limb was showing a bit strong as it got pulled further out, but I wanted to excercise it a few pulls to be sure of what it was doing before I scraped. Which just cleaning up the left limb and a sanding would have got the weight where I wanted it. As expected, she let go as I touched weight was about to pull it off the tree (there's a reason the camera was on). I suppose I'll have to back one of I want a heavier weight black cherry to hold together. I was actually expecting a pithy, CA glue soaked knot to let go before where it did 9" from the tip.
Tiller wise, I think the left side could have been working a bit harder. Which would've taken some pressure of the right side. After looking at te pictures it looks like the right outer half was working a bit more than it should've. Good bow woods would've taken those tiller flaws fine, but this stuff is soooo finicky everything has to be perfect it seems.
BTW, this was the first bracing and pulling on the tree at brace after a quick longstring session to get the weight in the ball park.
Any input appreciated, have fun picking it apart. It's a good learning tool for all.
Thanks,
Kyle
