uneven reflex

[Weylin]

Im working on a Hickory Flat bow and I just recently Heat treated it to temper the belly. During the tempering process I had used a caul to flip the tips and induce some reflex and it worked fine.  I have since started working the bow after giving it a couple of days to regain its moisture. It feels massively stronger and Im unable to string it at this point so I have started taking some wood off the limbs evenly to reduce the weight. I have been gently exercising the bow with a long string as I remove wood and I have noticed a potential problem. one of the limbs is retaining the majority of its reflex and the other limb is nearly straight again. because the bow has gained so much strength from the tempering I havent been able to get a good feel for the state of the tiller. It was well tillered before I started the process but given that I am inexperienced it is hard for me to judge it with the new reflex especially since one limb has alot of reflex and the other doesnt. I know that one should expect to lose a fair percentage of reflex gained from tempering but Im not sure how to interpret or deal with the imbalance. Any thoughts?

[Josh]

the same thing happened to me with hickory before too. It was while recurving the tips though.  I am gonna try again and add some overlays or underlays to thicken them up and make them static while still on the form.   Then let them try and pull out....  Hopefully someone with more experience will chime in soon.  Good luck.   -josh

[Weylin]

Thanks Josh, though it sounds like yours was a laminate bow if Im not mistaken. This is a self bow so I wont be able to do that on this one. Does anyone else have any experience with this happening?

[Pappy]

Never really had that problem,yes they will loose some of the reflex but most times loose it pretty even.I would carry on and take a little more off the reflexed limb at least till I got it braced again and see how it looks then. Did you heat them both evenly ? Did one have some natural reflex to start
with ? Sometimes a natural reflexed limb will hold a little better.You just have to take off the other limb and get it to even up. Keep us updated.
   Pappy

[Josh]

No Weylin it wasn't a laminate bow although by the time I get finished adding all the overlays and underlays it probably will look like one.    I just know if I heat in recurves and I don't want them to move during brace/fulldraw I can make them stay by adding more wood to keep them from bending out.  i.e. static recurves.  I don't know if this then turns it from a self bow into a laminate or not though.   

[Weylin]

heh, I dont know about that either Josh. Im very new to all of this, I had never heard of adding overlays and under lays to a one piece bow. Though in my case this is a longbow not a static recurve. I do want the reflxes to work and I expect to lose a good deal of it so I guess it's a little different.

@ Pappy, the limb that is holding it's reflex did have some slight natural reflex to begin with. I certainly intended to heat the limbs evenly, I even used a kitchen timer to make sure I moved the heatgun consistently but given that it was my first attempt at tempering I very well could have done it unevenly. So given that, your advice to take more off of the reflexed limb makes sense. My only concern is that pre-tempering, the reflexed limb was weaker than the other limb and was bending more. So I guess it worries me a little to take more off of the that limb now when it was the opposite before. What is your opinion on that?

thanks,
Weylin

[Gordon]

Weylin,

My experience has been that all bets are off after you temper the belly - it can completely change the tiller of a bow. Forget about what it used to look like and tiller it like it is now, i.e. take more off the now stronger limb until they balance out. But do it carefully, a highly reflexed limb will often seem to lose weight suddendly.