There are far, far better boyers on here than me, but I’ll give you my take fwiw. My first thought is “don’t complicate things.” With that in mind, the more variables you add to an equation, the more complex it gets. When I get a bow bending decently, I’m going to manipulate only one variable to get it bending like I want throughout…if that is possible. The variable is going to be the thickness of the limb, because at that point, my overall profile and limb width and length and width taper will be complete.
You say certain areas were bending too much. I’ve never (I believe) seen or read where you would heat treat a section of a limb to reduce too much bend there. I understand the thought process, but you just introduced a two very inexact variables that you had no way of guesstimating what the results would be. The way I see it is the only way to know that a piece of wood is heat treated equally throughout is to be very deliberate and consistent along the entire length of the wood. But I digress.
If a spot is bending too much on a limb or both limbs, remove wood on either side of the bend until you get the consistent sweep you are looking for. Will you lose draw weight in the process? Yes. So, go slower and get your tiller close on an overbuilt, too heavy bow…then go slow and be consistent with your scrapes until you hit your target weight.
In this case, you’ve passed that point, so remove wood where you need to without touching the too-bendy areas, get the bend like you want it, and proceed. The bow will be underweight, but you can remedy that once you have the tiller right. At that point, heat treat the entire belly in a consistent manner. You can remove length. You can add recurves. You can back with sinew. You can do all or any combo of the above.
I have no clue as to your best move with this current stick…take advice from the many awesome boyers on here other than me on that front.
Good luck with the current project…keep at it!
