
This was the tiller back in 2012, it looks to me to be bending too much at the ends, and there's not much meat there. It was a board but there was absolutely no runout at that point, the other limb that didn't break had a SLIGHT wave in the grain, nothing that would break in my inexperienced opinion.
I didn't see any frets and I had just refinished it... I forgot to mention I heat treated the belly slightly which may have overpowered the back. I've never heard that happen before