Ash bow

[smoky#1]

I have a bow made from ash that is done as far as i know, I was wondering what i could do to improve it? I will get some pictures posted soon. Thanks!

[soy]

Have you tempered the belly? can't wait to see some pics

[smoky#1]

Here are the photos of my bow.
Soy, not understanding what you mean by "have you tempered the belly".

[Weylin]

Welcome to PA.  It's hard to tell with your pictures but it looks like the top limb is bending more than the bottom limb. Maybe you could take a picture of the bow being pulled a little bit. Given what I see at brace I'm not sure I would advise pulling it to full draw but maybe a good side profile picture with the bow being pulled a few inches would give us more to work with. Also, can you tell us the length, the width, the draw length and the draw weight? That info would help too.

tempering is a process of heating the belly of the bow to the point that the cellular nature of the wood changes. This change can improve the compression quality of some woods and improve cast. Many white woods like ash can benefit from tempering quite a bit. You should do a little reading before you attempt it but it isn't too hard. Marc St. Louis is our resident tempering expert and has written some great guides to it.

[soy]

What he said

[smoky#1]

The height when strung is 62", Unstrung it's 64", The widest part of the limb is 1 1/4", The length from arrow rest to string is 7", The arrow rest is 3" above center, And draw weight is somewhere around 30-40#. And no i don't have it tempered.   

[adb]

Judging from brace profile, your bottom limb is much stiffer than the top. What's going on at brace is only magnfied at full draw. I can't imagine this bow will last long. A full draw pic would be handy.

[Weylin]

adb, I totally agree about the bottom over powering the top. however, if we can see that much of a difference at brace I dont think it would be good for the bow to be pulled all the way to full draw. Even if he just pulled it a few inches for us I'm sure that would tell us a lot with out overstraining the weak spots.

[adb]

adb, I totally agree about the bottom over powering the top. however, if we can see that much of a difference at brace I dont think it would be good for the bow to be pulled all the way to full draw. Even if he just pulled it a few inches for us I'm sure that would tell us a lot with out overstraining the weak spots.

I agree! If that bow was mine, I wouldn't draw it at all.

[smoky#1]

Yes you are right about the bottom limb being stiffer than the top, I made it that way because of the offset of the arrow rest, But i was afraid it was to much. Thanks!

[Weylin]

It is ok to have the bottom limb be a little stiffer. one way to measure if it is a safe amount of difference is to put a ruler between the belly and the string at mid limb and measure the distance. do this in the same spot on the lower limb and the difference between the two measurements should be around an 1/8"( the upper limb measuring 1/8" more). My guess is that it would be significantly more than that on your bow. To fix it you'll have to scrape wood off of the belly on the lower limb until it is bending more to match the upper limb. If you don't fix this not only will the cast be poor and the life of the bow be short but you will likely have some hand shock from the tips not slamming home in unison when you shoot.

[smoky#1]

Okay i'll do that sometime soon. Thanks!

[smoky#1]

Okay i tillered the bottom limb a little more, and have pic of bow drawn.

[blackhawk]

You still need more bend from mid limb out in both limbs.

[adb]

Both limbs are really only bending right at the fades, the top more than the bottom.