Hickory backed Yew

When Steve my visitor came over he also brought a stave made by a friend of his for me to finish. I think ill health is stopping the original maker finishing it. He's hoping for 60#. I don't really like working staves made by someone else but it would have been churlish to decline, after all, someone had put in some good quality work on the stave. I explained that there was no guarantee and that it could simply explode.
It's a slight conundrum, the maker was a cabinet maker or some such and, as such I can see it's well made, the glue line was invisible. Yet it had never had a string on it (the ends were cut off square with no nocks)! It looks like a bow that has been made by numbers, by someone skilled but a novice in terms of bow making.
The Hickory backing was rather thick, but had the corners nicely rounded, the belly had been made very rounded and the Z splice in the yew was tidy.
While Steve was here I filed in some nocks slipped on a long string and put it on the tiller. After some repeated flexing back and forth I got it back to 50# at about 20".
I felt it would be good for him to see it flexing, and if it exploded early at least he'd see that it had started out like that.
It looked rather stiff over the whole centre section, and the left (lower limb) was stiffer.
I've worked down the left limb a good bit and it's looking better and now back to 60# at 25" from a low brace. The picture shows how the right limb is still stiff on the inner third.
It will need some more work, but should make 60# at 28" with a bit of luck. It gives me something to tinker with while I'm having a break from the 100# bow.