Hickory selfbow finished minus handle

[LittleBen]

Been working on a hickory selfbow for a while. I cut the tree down in July around my birthday on the 6th and worked the bow to near final dimensions while still green.

Bow was made basically like an american flatbow with crowned back and flat belly. Character twists and turns were not removed but were left in. The top limb has a crazy bulge in it but overall it started with nearly 1/2" of reflex.

There it sat for months drying until finally, I pulled it out of the closet to find it springy, light, and sharp sounding when banged against the walls and closet rack coming out.

It was time to get working again. I've been reading TBB1 and 4 (dont ask) and I've been dying to do some heat treating and dry reflexing. So I did.

Introduced about 1.5" of reflex, mainly to the tips of the bow. and heat treated the entire limbs.

Bow is 62" ttt and roughly 2" wide at fades, tapering to 1/4" or so tips. The thinnest I've made yet. Not quite pyrimidal, it's what I'd call a pleases my eye taper, taper increasing near the tips and almost straight by the fades.

Bow feels about 40-45# @ 26" and holds about 1+" of reflex after being unbraced overnight. Still hasn;t been shot in, but I expect it to be slightly reflexed or 0" of string follow with slight R/D profile.
Pictures below for those interested. Still have to laminate on some wood to the handle which was planed flat, and need to cut a shelf etc. Otherwise it's finished aside from some spar varnish which is my new standard finish.

Let me know what you think!

   No pics over 600 pixels

[KellyG]

Do you use photo shop, if so you can set the default to be no wider then 640.

[LittleBen]

I thought I had resized appropriately during upload from iPhone. Unfortunatley iPhone is more powerful than I am. All is fixed.

 

 I notice your using photo bucket, you can set your setting in photo bucket to resize your photo's. The one I deleted here was still to big.

 There is a tutorial on the quick reply at the bottom of every post.

 Stiks

[KellyG]

Its looking pretty good to me.

[k-hat]

Hate to say it bro but looks like you have a pretty significant hinge right out of the fade in that top/right limb.  Notice on brace pic midlimb and on it's relatively straight, compare to the left which is bending pretty evenly all the way out.  Get the rest of that right limb bending and reduce the other all the way to match, or you'll be in for a headache, maybe literally!

[LittleBen]

Kevin, I appreciate the look at the tiller.

I believe what you're referring to is actually because the unbraced bow has a 'rollercoaster' bump in it. I'm reposting the image which was deleted and posting an unbraced pic to show you what I mean.
 
 
 

[k-hat]

Why didn't you say so!  Just kiddin, must've missed it in the original post. The rollercoaster and what looks like a little reflex explains that.  All the better your tiller then;)

Can't wait to see the finished product!

[LittleBen]

Thanks Kevin! You're right about the reflex as well. Mainly in the tips but also mid-limb in the top limb to cancel that bump out. I heat treated in some of the reflex and it actually held well. I'm sure I'll be heat treating more in the future.

[k-hat]

Glad i saw this because i have a hackberry with some similar rollercoaster issues i'm getting ready to tiller. Done plenty of boards, but this is my first stave, so we'll see how it goes.  Takin lessons from yours though!