Hello,
Just finished this HHB bow during the holidays while I should have been huntin' with Pappy at Land Between the Lakes.
Pappy gave me the stave for this bow, and it's was one of the best hhb staves I had seen...very straight and mostly problem free. I really took my time on the tiller and think the limbs stayed within 1/8" of each other from brace to finish. The tips were recurved after tiller was complete. Was a little nervous how well hhb would do using dry heat and adding a fairly large recurve, but it worked out fine with the help of a little vegetable oil on the belly side. The tips are from buffalo horn (compliments of Justin), and deer antler (provided that myself
). I first stained the bow with "special walnut" and litely wiped off with a paper towell dipped in acetone after the stain had dried for about an hour. This process really brought the grain out, although most of the pictures taken in bright sunlight with my 35mm film camera saved onto a disk did not show the grain as I had hoped. Got to get me a digital camera...I'll have to add that to my New Year's resolutions list!
I put 3 coats of tung oil on (PatB's suggestion) followed by 8 coats of tru-oil. I tried to improve on the stiching of the grip over what I've done in the past.
The bow really shoots good and I'm very impressed with hhb. I'd rate it as good as osage in performance of the finished bow, but not quite as well to work with using dry heat when tweaking. It relaxes after resting to a nice straight line. The bow is 63" ntn with 1-1/2" limbs tapering at midlimb to 3/8" tips. It is 55#@27"...
Again, many of the features incorporated into this bow were inspired by many of the beautiful bows I've seen displayed by the talented bowyers on the PA website and magazine.
Hope yall like it as much as I do!
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