I agree completely Mike - I'm not sure I remember saying it doesn't matter at any stage though! I rarely make anything out of ash without heavy trapping, heat treating and a flat belly. They all work, and provide consistent results, and if I need an ash bow I'll always use those techniques.
The reason this was frustrating for me is that I know having seen bows made by people like Jaro and Joe that ash also works without any of it, provided you're good enough to do it. Jaro's beautiful 160# ash self bow had no trapping, no heat treatment and a round Mary Rose style cross section. I've also seen a really nice ash bow that Joe made, around 80# which looked like a yew self bow except for the colour. It was completely round bellied and flat backed, very narrow and again had no heat treatment at all. The difference is that those guys are wizards with white woods. My hope is to get that right one day, and experimental stuff like this is the only way to get it right. I think also that the ash itself needs to be flawless for it to work, but my skills as a bowyer are way below par for it to work on the good stuff anyway!
As for the reflex - again you're quite right. It threw me for a loop being so extreme. The reason it had so much was because the stave was heavily bent sideways, so instead of doing awkward sideways heat bending which is always a pain with wide, thick staves I decided to flip the orientation and use the edge rings on the back of the bow, resulting in a reflex of about 5". We live and learn!
My next experiment is with ash that succumbed to the dieback disease. I've got about 6 dead straight 8ft trunks that would otherwise be perfect, except for a horrible black streak all the way through the cores. Those will be worked as usual - flat belly, trapped back, heat treated until the cows come home and if they work, I'll be trying the round belly, no heat method as well.
