Marc, when you back a bow and use two strips of backing do you glue it up all at once or do it in two sessions? I'm concerned with the overlap joint of the backing bulging up when I clamp the reflex in. More so with recurved bows because the backing is kind of trapped between the recurve and the overlapped area and wants to shorten up when you bend it.
If I'm using 2 strips to back the bow then it's one limb at a time. I'm not too concerned about the overlap, as long as it's a decent fit. I let the backing on the first strip extend past the center of the handle and heat-bend it so that it sort of follows around the the crown of the handle. I start clamping the backing at the handle and work my way out to the recurves. My backings are thickness tapered and also pre-bent to follow the contour of the recurve. It doesn't have to be perfect, you'll never get that, but the fit should be pretty good. Then when the first backing is dry I'll sand it so that the next strip will lay flat against it, like an overlap.
Marc i've worked with white oak and it bends really well using dry heat and also benefits with heat treating. I have not attempted a reflex deflex though so i don't know how it would work in that regards but i am confident i can get the curves i want with it. I am glad to hear i dont need to add a strip to the back it makes my first attempt at this much easier.
White Ash heat-bends well also but it can't take the compression, it chrysals badly
So Marc would hacberry be a good choice
That's another wood I don't have access to so couldn't tell you
Ideally you would want at least 4" of reflex , more is better. You don't want to put too much deflex in with a selfbow otherwise you'll have a hard time reflexing it enough to get the tips behind the handle. Top quality Elm is great for a bow like this. I've also come to believe that Elm benefits from a higher crown, what you would get from a small diameter tree. Heat-treating seems to give balance to it's tension strong back
