few recurve questions

[uncleduck]

I have a few questions to ask before diving into my first recurve attempt out of an osage stave. I plan on using a heat gun for the heating.

The stave I'm working on has some prop twist and needs to be tweaked sideways a bit to get the tips to line up through the handle, am I correct in assuming that I should do this prior to heating in the recurves?

I have a caul made to put in about 2" of reflex from the handle to the tip while lining the tips up and taking care of the prop twist. Is it too much to ask of the wood to induce this reflex and have recurves?

As of now the limbs are about 2 inches wide from the handle to the tips. I've heard that it is easier to bend the curves in first then narrow the tip width, is this correct?

I have the last 8" or so of each limb down to one growth ring on the belly and at about 5/8" thick, is this too thick for bending with heat? I was hoping for a static recurve.

Is there a number of times of reheating/tweaking that the wood (osage) will not tolerate any more heating/bending?

I am assuming that it will take a number of small heating tweaks after putting in the recurves, to get the proper string alignment, are these extra heatings going to cause the recurves to want to bounce back to their original shape?

Any other advice would be great also. Thanks for the help.

Dave

[uncleduck]

Forgot to mention that I was planing on doing one curve at a time on a caul with a 5 gal bucket profile, metal strap to hold the limb tip in place, and c-clamps for the holding the rest. I also planned on running a metal strap along the belly also to hopefully discourage splinters lifting.

Dave 

[blackhawk]

for that steep of an angled static recurve and thickness of wood, i wood boil or steam the wood to bend it and not dry heat. much safer and easier and you can achieve the bend all at once. if you used dry heat for that much curve it will more than likely splinter and crack too much.

me personally i bend the curves in first and bend them inline with the way the limbs are even if twisted,then floor tiller,then make the twist correction. and be careful to keep the heat away from your curves,otherwise they will pull out some. you can do it the other way as well,but then be careful to keep your heat away from the working limbs where you made the twist correction. many ways to skin a cat

i make my tips about an inch wide when i bend and reduce the width later after hwere i know the string is tracking.

[uncleduck]

I guess that should have been another question I should have asked...is a 5 gallon curve too aggressive for a beginner such as myself? 

[scp]

I guess it would depend on the length of recurved sections. Experts here are saying that recurves should be severe but quite short. I remeber reading about making them with 4 inch radius curve. In that case the sections cannot be much longer than 6 inches.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Go read through my hackberry static build along. 

[crooketarrow]

 First off seasoned wood use dry heart. Green wood steam. You don't what to put uneeded moisture in your stave.
    I've BUILT A FEW recurves and had 2 friends that all they made were recurves working wood recurves . Here what they did and I followed suit. I cut my stave down to simi bow fourm. Left it heavy so you have some wood to take out the get rid of the dicolored wood. Straighten tips to handle while still big.
   Heat with a heat gun on as low as it would go. Heated in one curve slowlyyyyyy at a time.The slower the better you want to heat all the ways through to retain your beens after your done. Leave the heat gun to after the wood turns color but not scorched black. Then I'd move it a couple inchs. If work woods scroching black your heating to fast.
  Made the clamps to your caul out of 2 altread screws one on each side of the caul where you have a end that conects the altreads. This way you can tighted the bolts down slowly as you heat the been. Far easyer the trying to keep the c clamps in place while tighting them down.
  I'd go slowwwwwwwwwwwwwww with the heating one bend might take me hours.
  After I got my beens in I cut down the limbs so theyed be even(the same) line up with the handle. It should already be close from from straighting while the stave was straight. After I got it to bow foum and tips lined with the hadle I tiller it out. Again slowlyyyyyyyyyy
    My bows came out way better than I exsected. My friends made dozzens and had it down and there bows were top nocked in looks and performence. They and I built working recurves.
  Fliping tips is not a true recuve.