Just broke ole Betsy

[Gsulfridge]

   Man! I just broke my only bow. It was a hickory board bow in flatbow style. I couldn't leave well enough alone and tried steam bending to flip the tips a little. I heated for 40 minutes over a pot with foil around it and got it into the jig quickly. Just started to clamp it when ccraaack!  Now I'm bowless   Time to start the next one. As the saying goes " if you ain't breaking, you ain't making". I think I'm done with hickory for a while.  Black Locust seems to work better for me. One stave of that left.  I guess everyone has to pay their dues. That's two failures out of three attempts.

[JW_Halverson]

I feel your pain.  The only people in here that don't have never so much as picked up a tool yet!

And they will learn soon enough!

Better luck, brother mine, better luck!

[kevinsmith5]

My first bow was red oak, a wide pyramid (3 1/2" at the fades) and only pulled about 30 lbs at 28". I linen backed it. That seems to be a very forgiving design.

[scp]

If it's just a tip that is broken, I would v-splice a siyah in its place.