Rot or Not?

I got an E-mail from one of my friends, who having read my previous entry pointed out that not all discolouration is rot. It shows we are all still learning.
Some is chemical staining due to extractives, there are also wood staining fungi as well as wood rotting fungi, not to mention yeasts etc. I found some interesting articles by searching for discolouration of wood etc.
Anyhow, the proof of the pudding is in the eating so we'll see how the bow turns out.

Ah, well. I'd been hoping it would turn into a Character Primitive to be called 'Scarface' due to the huge scar mid way along the upper limb, where some sapwood damage seems to have promoted the change into extra heartwood. (1/4 way in from the right, lower edge on the second pic).
You can see for yourself the result. It wasn't far off tillered. Interestingly, it wasn't that area which gave way.
It's very hard to draw good conclusions from a break.
It would be tempting to look at the top pic and say that line of discolouration gave way, effectively de-laminating. Conversely the second picture could indicate I got it bending too much in the handle and the two pin knots were the weak point. (The handle is on the extreme left, you can just see the slight narrowing and some remaining bandsaw marks).
Without a stupidly expensive highspeed camera and flood lights it's impossible to see the break propagating. The simple answer is often the right one (Occam's Razor)
This bow was always likely to be a triumph of optimism over common sense, but it's good to strive to push the boundaries.
I'm now very happy with my decision to saw this slice from the bigger warbow stave. Bit of a shame as it hadn't taken any set and felt pretty lively.
I'm just pleased I didn't spend too much time on it.

I like to get the most from any breakage, so I took the opportunity to cut a cross section from the unbroken lower limb just to see how it looked.