my first and my latest bow side by side.

[sleek]

Just as a fun comparison I grabbed my first, a 48" elm bow woth stiff handle, 50#@25" and set it next to my latest 54" 50@26.

The elm bow cracked on the back pretty badly for a few reasons. I had left the bark on it and with a poor tiller, the bark lofted and a splinter was happy to follow. I put dear skin on the back to protect the crack and shot it rest the season. That summer I hung it up and made another. I have no idea why or how its still in one piece.

I keep looking at it and thinking, if rawhide keeps it togetjer, sinew would do better. Then I could shoot it again. I miss being able to. Then it think about retillering it and getting it nice but its a different bow then. I just dont know.

[sleek]

[sleek]

That little elm bow was a boss though dont let it fool you. 20 yards it would have no trouble putting a field point through both sides of an empty two liter bottle. That takes speed to not just knock tje bottle out tje way or only go in one side and carry it with it.

[bowandarrow473]

Very cool comparison. If you don't want to add sinew then just shoot it till it breaks and post the pictures on the exploding bow thread 

[sleek]

Haha          no.

[Eric Krewson]

My first bow was a sinew backed osage board bow, it blew after thirty shots. I didn't floor tiler, just cut it out, sinewed it, strung it up and started shooting, it had "issues".

I threw it out on the street on a pile of bagged leaf clippings for the Thursday morning trash pick-up. Someone driving by saw it, stopped and took it home with them. I suspect they thought it was an authentic injun bow and thought they found a treasure.

[Arrowind]

dude.  That's cool.  I would leave it and put it on the wall and keep making new ones.  that's just me.   I like to keep stuff for all the memories etc.  I like being able to look back and see the history of my bow building adventures.  if you do some work on it it will be a different bow but...could also be a really fun story and make and even richer history!  Like the reforging of the sword in Lord of the Rings!  NERD ALERT!  YEAH!