Primitive Archer

Your side layout is "iffy", very uneven.

If you draw side lines that are the same on all 4 sides you will have much less trouble matching your limbs.

Like this; I drop my line 1/16" every 6" as I go to the tip. The bellies of my bows are slightly rounded and get almost round near the tip.

Your log won't change any in the time you have to get it back home.

I don't go after inner splits on hickory; it can be done but with hickory so plentiful where I live, I don't feel it was worth my time. If you split off the inner sapwood it is very unlikely that the split will follow the grain, inner splits tend to cross grains and go up or down, I did all of my splitting with wedges and a small 3# sledge hammer, everything split off easily.

Chasing a ring on hickory can be done, I ended up chasing one ring on the back of all of the hickory staves that you see in the pile but I have chased so may rings on osage staves that it wasn't that hard even though the hickory rings were tight, it was more scraper work than drawknife work.

The scrap pile has mostly side cuts off the splits that were too wide, I made every stave a uniform width. Some of the staves were too thick so I split off the bellies which was a mixture of sapwood and heart wood.

I have an older friend that has used hickory exclusively throughout his many years of bow making, he cuts a log in half and leaves it that way for 6 months before he splits it into staves. He said this minimizes any warping that may occur.

Most of my staves stayed arrow straight, a few doglegged as they dried, I found that hickory is very hard to heat correct. I  straightened my warped staves with steam and heat, a few behaved, most went back to their bent configuration and required repeated straightening sessions to correct.

If I had made my staves a little wider, I could have cut a straight stave out of the center of the bent wood.

Like I said it took me two weeks to clean up the backs of all of those staves. Here they are in my shop finally cleaned up with the backs and ends painted with shellac.



   

Thanks, maybe I will have it ready by ElmHall. 
 Pappy

KOBAN in the med isle of cvs works great for breathable and compressible and easy to work with wrap.  I'm gong to throw in my 0.2 that really helped me on the one and only bow I sinewed.  DO NOT SKIMP ON THE PREPARATION!  Be organized and have a plan and all your stuff together.  I recommend writing out the plan and journaling as you go.  When I started, I took my time and put much effort into separating my sinew into fairly equal length groups of long, med, short.  I then ran small diameter stout sharp nails through a scrap piece of osage and made a sinew separating brush...which was a huge help.  I then worked the sinew with my hands and then that brush to fray it down to as small of individual fibers as possible.  I then traced a rough estimate of the back of my bow and began arranging the processed, fluffy bundles onto that drawing in the manner that I wanted them to be stacked alternating long strips with shorter strips and middle length strips with tips overlapping an inch or more.  I did the middle of the back to tips first and made sure everything was symmetrical top to bottom.  I then placed the next two rows outside of that making sure that the overlapping ends fell well within the center of whatever bundle was next to it...like laying bricks. I continued to do this and adjust to get it all like I wanted it.  Once that was done to my liking, I removed each bundle and numbered/labled them as to where they were going to go when the gluing started.  Keep this part organized.   I then took each bundle in their respective size groups and weighed them.  I'd pull a few strands out of a heavy bundle and add it to it's lighter corresponding/opposite side bundle and repeated this process until I felt that the sinew would be of equal weight/thickness all along the bow with the bundles in the center of the bow and center of the limbs being slightly heavier than what was to be along the edges and further out toward the tips.   

Get your glue right...I used the double boiler or pot in a pot method and a thermometer to keep as hot as possible without damaging the glue or sinew.  Have a plan and execute it.

I roughed/grooved my bow with hacksaw blade then I used a lye solution to make dang sure there were no oils on the back.  I then "strung it backward" and I sized the back with two or three layers of hide glue, and once it was almost dry, I started laying down my strips from the center handle to the tips overlapping and meshing the ends together with a smooth antler tine,  Tried to smooth it out as flat with the least amount of sinew fibers twisting onto/over each other as possible,  Be efficient with this process, as the glue will start gelling fairly quickly.  Repeat this process with the next two rows on each side of the center row and again try to mesh the edges of the side by side sinew with the antler as well as meshing the end to end overlaps.  Continue to do this until back is covered with some rolling onto the sides. I did not wrap and let the first layer dry, but just let it sit there as I weighed out and organized bundles for my second layer.which was one robust center run from tip to tip.  The third layer was a complete layer like the first covering and enmeshing with the 2nd layer which acted to cause a slight crown on the back as well as the first layer.   The hot glue on each bundle melts the glue on previous bundles enough to get them all meshing a bit.  Once the third layer was on, I wrapped it carefully but tightly with coban and set it by my AC at night and out in the sun during the day when the RH was dropping below 8% and I'd bring it back in and put it by AC at night,

I've got exact weights of each bundle and the layers in a book at home, and it was weights based on what very wise people on here directed me to do.  I can shoot you those numbers if you want.  I wouldn't do any sanding to the dried back.  You will want a waterproofer on there, and the wrapped sinew comes out very consistent and fairly smooth once you take the wrap off.  A good sizing of TB3 on the sinew followed by a liberal TB3 gluing on of a quality snake skin will have the back smooth as baby butt with no need to sand the sinew and decrease any structural integrity you just worked so hard to get.

I'll try to find a free and quit abusing my draw knives.  Thanks.