I have a question on a project I am going to pursue. I originally built a hickory board bow with a silk tie as backing. I got to shoot the bow for a day and got a 27" draw from it. I think the poundage was around #35-38. I was hesitant on the last 2" for draw. Well to make a long story short I put the bow away and 3 years later to the month picked it back up and was flinging arrows with it along with some other bows (solid fiberglass bows). I wasn't using the proper stringing technique with the other bows and when I did the same thing to the board bow it broke about 8" from the end. I am now having to deal with a bow from the new length. My question is I have Gemsbok horns. If I get the horns down to 1/8 inch thickness and use it on the belly of the bow along with the silk backing, how much wood should I remove from the board bow before I put the horn on. The bow is 44'' end-to-end, 1" wide, red oak, with the handle laminations removed the thickness at the handle is 7/8 tapering to 1/4 square at the very end. The reason the handle is so narrow, I cut the handle and had laminations on it and cut into the riser. So what do think. I have tried to take up the silk tie but it isn't budging. This project will take a little while as I still have to file the ridges off the horns and clamp, steam and straighten them.
