Finally managed to bend tips - further guidance needed

[PEARL DRUMS]

Use steam or boiling for recurves, no matter the wood species.

[leonwood]

Hazel will not respond well to dry heat, boil it but set the recurve with the heat gun the next day or it will come out later. This bow would have given you a lot of trouble aligning the tips because they where too narrow and too thin. On the next one I recommend you keep the tips wide and if you are going for hazel again keep the whole bow wide.

[FilipT]

How do you mean set the recurve next day with the heat gun? What do I do with boiling then?

[PatM]

Boil or steam it and then after it has set/dried hit it with the heat gun to lock the curve in. 

 Also why don't you cut the ends off this one and try a shorter one? 

[simk]

i assume he meant first boil & bend & then the next day fix &stabilize the recurve with dry heat. also sorry you misunderstood my recommendation about heat treating hazel: i meant dry heat works well to improve efficiency with hazel, not bending. what you can do with hazel is bending recurves into the fresh cut wood and let it dry then. good luck!

[FilipT]

I'll try your advice with the next bow. Not sure what I will use though.

[simk]

I did that with my 2nd bow and it still works. Be careful, not too thick or they will crack, and while slowly bending added some dry heat. ( No warranty)  later stabilize it with dry heat. Edit: Dry wood certainly is best steamed.

[bushboy]

I floor tiller and try to get the outer limbs very close in dimensions(especially thickness)!while balancing it on the fulcrum to assure equal mass or close.sand down all hard edges to a small radius and do a dry run.

[FilipT]

simk
Very cool looking bow. I like the slight recurves like these, instead of aggressive static recurves. Ok, I wouldn't mind having such bow but I prefer the former.

bushboy
So you primarily worry about outer thirds where recurves will be and you try to get them equal?

[bushboy]

Ideally ,it's best to get both limbs equal as possible.balance at the fulcrum is a tool I use for this.i have found that it's all about the prep work,so when you go to bend it every thing move equally or close to it.i have only been using Marc's localized steam method for hooks,as you can see it works well!

[FilipT]

I changed the name of the thread. This has been a third attempt at making a recurve. Second one, hazel, broke at the tips like I mentioned at the previous page and this one is like the first one, a black locust flatbow. It is practically the same dimensions as the first black locust bow was, except it is a bit wider at the handle and fades.

I decided to follow PatM advice so I cut the string grooves in and immediately bent the tips. During the bending I got just a few minor raised splinters which were immediately removed and sanded down. Pictures are below. Soon I will proceed to tillering and will post here my progress. Looking forward to this adventure!

P.S. I have also one other roughed out black locust bow which is the same dimensions as the first one. So at the end hopefully I will get two almost the same looking bows. The second one will be a bit lighter in draw weight though.

Viewed from the back


Viewed from the side


Bow before the recurving shown on the left, on the right is the second one I talked about above

[FilipT]

I have yesterday bent the second bow and will go tillering next week. I will put pictures as I progress.