I've been working on a bow for my boy's 3rd birthday for months now. I had it tillered nicely and I just had a couple pounds to take off of it before I finished her up. The string wasn't passing over the center of the handle so I clamped it to the table, hung 20 lbs. off the end and heated it up with the heat gun. everything was fine. it bent nicely and just needed to cool off. But stupid me decided to borrow one of the clamps that was holding it down so I could work on another stave while it was cooling. I didn't get the new clamp on as well as i thought and as I took off the original clamp the bow twisted and the weights pulled the limb backward instead of to the side. It snapped just off the fade with no hope of repair.
If I'd have just waited 10 more minutes for the damn thing to cool off everything would have been fine. Oh well, lesson learned.
Interestingly, this kid's bow was being made from a bow that I had previously broken while making a bow for my dad. it snapped near the tip so I piked it down and converted it into a bow for Ronan. Apparently this stick just didn't want to be a bow. I think I'll try again with a little piece of oceanspray.
