Elm recurve

[HH~]

True but it moves tip forward. Some wood will hold reflex very well some will no at all and that in same wood species. I would think any way the tip starts and finishes lengthens the stoke until string hits the recurved limb. One of reasons why i like my big hook with a fairly low brace. Shoots very well like this.

Shawn~

[Selfbowman]

Ok not sure I understand but I’m watching and probably will make a go at it along with some knife blade attempts. Arvin

[mmattockx]

Just so you know.  When I was going strong making this type of bow I made pretty well all of them with about 10" of reflex and they would end up keeping around 6" after tillering and shooting

What shape was the caul you used to heat the reflex in? Elliptical, circular, something else? 10" of reflex is a stupendous amount for an all wood bow.


Mark

[RyanY]

True but it moves tip forward. Some wood will hold reflex very well some will no at all and that in same wood species. I would think any way the tip starts and finishes lengthens the stoke until string hits the recurved limb. One of reasons why i like my big hook with a fairly low brace. Shoots very well like this.

Shawn~

The overall reflex being the same would likely result in similar amounts of energy storage but the stress on the limbs would be totally different. Substantially more so with just reflex at the handle due to the tighter bend radius that would result in the limbs.

[PatM]

Just setting back the handle will inevitably cause the working limbs to slump a bit from the strain.  Actually reflexing the limbs with heat mitigates this problem.

[bownarra]

And it forces the limb to bend more mid to outer thus lowering energy storage...
photos coming...only manged to get one limb heat treated and reflexed today so can't say how much total reflex yet but...it's a lot
Tillering this thing will be interesting.

[bradsmith2010]

nice work so far, Im sure it will shoot great,,

[HH~]

Really

I have see them set forward then reflexed with good heat and seen no ill effects to "working limb " what so ever. In fact we just did one like this. Real dense orange, hard, close ring piece and it held every single bit we put to it. Its a killah Bart says. One the finest we've made in some time. Hard to remember I make a chit ton of bows and forget most of em. I do remember Gary Davis telling me  "he liked billet bows" and that was one reason why. The other is rather obvious.

Get up with the Recurve shoot out. Ante be getting on the hard reflex caul soon. Not going to burn the bejesus out of it like i seen guys do though.

HH~

[Marc St Louis]

My caul was somewhat elliptical but I would adjust the reflex by using small shims between the back and the caul to add more reflex in specific areas of the limb if that was what I was looking for ( that's where being flexible comes in handy ).  I also used clamps to restrain certain areas that I had already heat-treated since adding more pressure further down the limb would change what I had already treated and I didn't want that.  Probably having a specific caul for each bow would have made things simpler but I was experimenting and quite often changed things around and that would have left me with a lot of cauls, still wound up with 1/2 a dozen of them.

[PatM]

Really

I have see them set forward then reflexed with good heat and seen no ill effects to "working limb " what so ever. In fact we just did one like this. Real dense orange, hard, close ring piece and it held every single bit we put to it. Its a killah Bart says. One the finest we've made in some time. Hard to remember I make a chit ton of bows and forget most of em. I do remember Gary Davis telling me  "he liked billet bows" and that was one reason why. The other is rather obvious.

Get up with the Recurve shoot out. Ante be getting on the hard reflex caul soon. Not going to burn the bejesus out of it like i seen guys do though.

HH~

   You said setback and  didn't mention heat initially.   Many of Marc's bows being mentioned were just one piece.

[Del the cat]

Watching (with safety glasses and hard hat )
Del 

[bjrogg]

Watching (with safety glasses and hard hat )
Del 

Me to Del. I have always been amazed at Marcs highly reflexed bows. How much reflex he’s able to keep in them. I’m just not that confident I could pull off trying to tiller one myself or I would have tried it by now.

I know one thing for sure. When I do I’m not going to post the build live.lol.

Good Luck Id love to see another bowyer develop the tillering skills of Marc. The man just really seems to have the eye and patience to find what’s a bow and what isn’t.

Bjrogg

[HH~]

Trying with elm is a good idea. You can tie limbs in pretzel shapes and not have a catastrophic with it for most part. Fast bow and accurate bows are usually two animals with different spots.

Love to see some more on this elm super reflex.

HH~

[Selfbowman]

Pics!!   

[bownarra]

Finally manged to find some time. So i,ve got it reflexed, heat treated and ready to tiller further. It's 19 oz. Reflex is around 7 inches. One very faint belly crack that should be removed with a pass or two of the rasp...fingers crossed. I've made bows with them in and they seem to hold up but of course not ideal in this case...time will tell?
Here are a few pictures of the progress.