Limb trapping question

[mastin03]

Im in the process of working on a hickory board bow.  Right now its roughed out, and ready of long string tiller. 70" total, 68"ntn.  10" glued on riser section.  1.75" wide from fades out to 4" past mid limb, tapering to 5/8" nocks to be slimmed down later. Thickness is 3/4" through the handle section (not including the riser) to an inch past the fades.  From there its an even taper from 5/8" down to 3/8" at the tips.  From floor bending its still pretty stiff and it seems like i still have quite a bit of room for wood removal to hit 45@28".  Onto my question....would i benefit at all from trapping the wider section of the limbs, say from fade out to midlimb on the belly?  I know that thickness has a lot more to do with limb strength than width, but i was just wondering if it would make the initial tiller a little nicer in terms of getting the inner limb bending earlier. I am really trying to focus a little more on rough out dimensions this time around to try and reduce the amount of wood that has to be removed once tillering starts...anyway, lots of thoughts and questions here, sorry about that.  Still new to this game and trying to do more thinking and educated wood removal than just putting it on the tree and rasping away for hours. thanks for any insight

[Pat B]

Hickory is very strong in tension but not so strong in compression so it is a good candidate for trapping to favor the belly. At the length and width you have there I don't think it is necessary but I won't hurt anything either.
  For me, the best way to become familiar with a piece of wood and reduce it to a bow with hand tools. I do use a bandsaw to get a bow to near floor tiller stage but after that it is either rasp or scraper and once I get the bow half tillered it a scraper only. That way I am in control of where I want to go with the bow.   Pat

[mastin03]

thanks pat...im using nothing but a rasp, block plane, and a scraper as im trying to get more in tune with the nitty gritty details before moving onto anything that is going to remove wood to fast...

[Pat B]

If you find the limbs getting too thin, you can reduce the width to reduce weight also. The way you have it set up, your bow is overbuilt. You can go out about 6" or 8" from the fades and start your taper to the tips.    Pat

[mastin03]

i went ahead and took your advice and reworked the shape last night.  Started the taper 8" from the fades and after getting it cleaned up moved her right into tiller...thanks for the help on that,just that reduction in wood rduced the weight significantly. it should only be a few days now to get the finished on the tree and ill have her whipped

[Pat B]

I'm glad that helped you out. Hickory makes an excellent bow wood but you have to controll M/C. In the newest PA magazine(just out) Mark Baggett(Pappy) wrote an excellent article on making hickory bows. Pappy lives in Tenn, above Nashville and in that high R/H area he utilizes his hot box constantly to keep his hickory bows dry and shooting well.
   Looking forward to seeing your progress and the completed bow.     Pat