Saturday 22 February 2014

The Wisdom of Waiting

I've had the spliced Yew bow on the tiller and it was pulling back ok. The cracking sound of the cambium popping off the right limb was a tad disconcerting as for a moment I thought it was the glue of the splice giving way!
The reflexed limb has been trying to bend sideways big time and seems a tad softer than the upper limb. I've adjusted the tips to try and correct the string line, but there isn't much spare width left.
Plan B! I'm heat treating the belly and straightening that limb simultaneously. It should toughen the belly and hopefully make the limb stiffer so it matches the the other limb better. It should help stop the sideways bend by fully correcting the string line. I'm also taking a hint of reflex out of it to make the tillering easier.
I checked it this morning and it needs a bit more shift to get it right so I've clamped it up and given it another burst of heat treatment.


While that's cooling off overnight I've taken a pic of the Yew repair bow at 28" draw, both limbs look a tad stiff in the outer half to me, it's fairly subtle, but bear in mind it gets drawn to 31". I didn't want to hold it at 31 on the tiller and risk over stressing it.
The left limb looks to have a more full bellied curve and isn't so bad.
I've been asked to re-tiller it if I feel it is needed.
I'll ease off that left limb outer just a whisker and do a tad more on the right, hopefully it should make it shoot a bit sweeter, the draw weight may drop a pound or two, but it should loose some outer limb weight and may well shoot just as fast. Basically I'll just be extending that blend into the nock which I showed in one of the previous posts. I'l take it back to about mid limb, just taking the corners off the belly, as the bow is very square in cross section. Were I really going mad, I'd maybe heat treat the belly of the inner limbs to remove the set and heat temper the wood like I did on the 'Hickory Challenge' bow.
I won't do that though as it may over stress the bow and I also don't want to scorch the leather grip.
Always good to take a 'before' pic for comparison. The unstrung pic shows where the bow has taken it's set, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

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