I would like to share the third bow that I made. Thia was really just a bow made to pass the time and to test my skills on a questionable piece of wood. Basically this was a 4" diameter branch that I was only able to get a 51" straight piece from. I decided to split it recently and see what I can come up with. This piece of wood really surprised me. I got it floor tillered to what I thought would be about 35# based on thickness and boy was I wrong. Long story short it started off as a r/d bow with a draw weight of 44#@22". I felt it would be largely a display bow because I couldnt comfortably reduce my draw that much with any consistency. I decided that is no good and to try and recurve it for better or worse! It worked.....
And this is what I ended up with, 49.5" nock to nock, 56#@25", and 1-1.5" of set that has not increased. I can see the top limb (right) looks like it is bending slightly too much just out of the fade but I had two knots to work around on that limb.
Oh and the other crazy thing, this stave had huge growth rings resulting in the entire bow being comprise of 1.5-2 rings (except for at the handle). As always, please point out anything that couls be improved upon!
