Sorry for answering so late. I try to reply every question now:
its rawhide from deer and Ive cut the whole for the knot. I also heat treated the bow and it gained 10lbs after shooting now 200 arrows it has arround 55lbs @ 28,5".
The bow is from ash tree with quiet big grow rings. Some say thats good but the tree was not so big in diameter. I prefer small rings from big trees on ash but this one worked out still good in stringfollow.
also that is the reason Ive let the needles a bit bigger but thin. In my experience steaming ash recurves always went back a little bit so I decided to make them bigger and also harden them with heat treating after steaming. They are also lighter then. tiller didnt change yet.
It defently got more power and got a lighter bow after the heat treating. Its an amazing method and in my experience ash is very good for heat treating.
a few weeks ago I heat treated a 10 years old (once 60lbs) ash flatty that had a lot of set and only 50lbs. This 10 year old bow has now 65lbs. I only had the problem with compression cracks which I filled with epoxy and bandaged.
Its really the easiest tuning for me