I'll preface by saying that this bow doesn't really resemble a traditional horn bow so I decided not to put in the horn bow forum. It's more of a tri-lam that happens to use sinew and horn.
50# draw at 28" (give or take a pound or two depending on the mood of the bow)
58 inches NTN
11 gpp arrows chrono'd at average 161 fps
In my quest to find traditional bow materials that can handle my extreme dry weather I've decided maybe this combo will work. I used a hickory stave as the core with steam bent reflexed tips. Laminated the horn on using G Flex epoxy. Has maple underlays on the tips, butted up to the horn. Horn nocks as well. Finished with a tung oil and Tru Oil combo.
I covered the sinew with silk from a Goodwill blouse. We're so dry here that sinew and hide glue behave funny. The glue becomes real brittle, and sinew fibers will often lift up just while sanding and strands will pop loose while exercising the limbs. I probably need to squeeze out less glue from the sinew, but if I use too much glue I get perpendicular cracks that go pretty deep, to the point of creating a hinge. The silk over-backing seems to be the ticket so far...fingers crossed. Thought about doing like Ed Scott and using Titebond but will only go that route as a last resort.
To give an idea of my challenging weather, today the measured humidity at the lab sites was 9% with a high in the mid 80's. And it rained two days ago!!! The ground is still wet in the shaded areas.
So far I've shot about 300 arrows. This is only the second recurve I've gotten to the shooting stage and I was extremely surprised my tip alignment came out perfect, no tweaking required.
Sorry for the crummy cell phone pics and wasn't able to take a selfie (how I hate that word!) at full draw. Upper limb looks way out of tiller in the fist pic but it's just the crummy phone camera and picture angle.
