I never actually gave it much thought before. But toasting a belly was just one of them techniques for master bowyers and nutty folks in my book.
I mean, who wants to fry a bow?
But I had a small hickory bow I made my son a few years ago that had always been a poor performer. It doesn't help that it was a scrapped piece of wood with a loopty-loo right off one fade and that made for a horrible tiller. It wasn't bad for what it was but I had always wanted better.
Maybe I can just never be satisfied. Maybe.
Anyway, yesterday my hellions... err, children were just not exhibiting the kind of behavior that I could have trusted them to be by themselves whilst I whittle away some time in the BatCave so I just brought the little bow up and carefully strung it up backwards and proceeded to apply heat. In the loopty-loo I noticed moisture of some sort coming to the surface. I deduced it had to be the Crisco I used to try and tame that evil. I wiped it off and kept the heat on it for a while and kept that up til I figured I got it all. That section never really turned brown... orange maybe but not brown. Then I went on to the rest of the limbs. After unstringing this thing had about 5 inches of reflex!
It had about 1" before I started. I figured it will pull out some after shooting. I left it to cool overnight.
I strung it up and took an arrow weighing about 363 grains, more than 10 grains per pound but you can only get so light after a point you know.
Well, she shot considerably faster and kept impacting about 6" higher than where I was looking and used to her flinging that arrow.
So... I believe, I believe, OK? Twisting my arm never felt so satisfying before.
Except maybe when Mrs. Possum had to convince me to finish the ice cream in the fridge.
possum
