Rookie Hickory Board Bow

[(bow)Hunter]

Almost done with her! Just got some rattlesnake skins from the local taxidermy (would've killed the snake myself but I live in an unfortunately urban area) and they are gonna be glued up on her later today! would've posted full draw pics but I'm home by myself for a bit - will do that later.

Any advice on how to apply the snake skins on the back?
the back is stained but not finished (the belly is stained and finished with tru oil)

She pulls about #60 at 29 in

Advice on what kind of arrows I should use? I'm totally lost in that category. Would love to make my own arrows though.
Comments, critique are appreciated, she's my first bow (that works!)

[JoJoDapyro]

What is the brace height on it? It looks very low (like 4 inches maybe). Before you get too crazy with skins I would shoot it a bit and make sure that it doesn't break on you. A waste of time and money to put skins on if it going to break. Just my rookie 2 cents.

[(bow)Hunter]

Good call JoJo, I will definitely do that before I put the skins on. And yeah you are spot on, the brace height is 4 inches! Should it be more than that?? I've made a couple more strings that were too long or too short and I thought that one was the best fit. But then again I have no real super in depth knowledge of what I'm doing so any help is appreciated haha

[son of massey]

If you try shooting the bow with that low a brace height chances are it will be at least a little painful as there is no real room for your wrist to get to the handle without making contact with the string also. A common brace height is close to 6". If you make a fist with the thumb extended-colloquially regarded as a "thumbs-up" sign-that is about 6". If you put the bottom of your fist on the handle of the bow and the top of your thumb is near the string that is usually pretty comfortable and that measurement is called a fistmele. These are approximate measures as individuals may like a slightly higher or lower brace than this, and arrow flight/comfortable shooting are usually the things that determine where exactly your brace will fall.

If a string is a bit to long twisting it may shorten it just the right amount. If you are using a Flemish string that is a touch too short slightly untwisting it can give you a little more length. These twisting corrections are fine tuning, if there are major length issues a different string is a better bet.

SOM