I had this bow that had been sitting on a shelf for several years. I had made the bow as an experiment in flight shooting. The bow was a recurved Elm D bow, it was 66" long and had been tillered to 50# @ 30". Even though it shot well enough the recurves were too big and the bow was just too long for what was asked of it, this robbed performance. In short I was not satisfied with the bow. Here is a picture of what the bow looked like originally
I decided to other day to "fix" it. I cut 7" from the length, 3 1/2" from each end which left a slight amount of the recurves. I also waisted the handle a bit more than it was originally, everything else I left alone. The bow turned out quite well and I am pleased with it. It's now 59" long with limbs 1 5/8" wide and it pulls 60# @ 28". It still has just a slight amount of recurves left over from the originals and it also has some reflex left, about 3" after being re-tillered and pulled to full draw many times. In all it only took me a few hours to make the changes. The end result is a much more attractive looking bow that has a much better feel to it. The finish on this bow is a layered 3 part finish of Tung Oil, Shellac and Carnauba Wax. Here is what the bow looks like now.
My intention, originally was to not put overlays on this bow but I made one of my quick and easy strings out of Linen for this bow. The timber hitch at the one end literally crushed the nock by strangulation so I had to beef them up with the Desert Ironwood overlays. First time that ever happens to me
