Just Can't Do It

[Roy from Pa]

LOL

[RedStag5728]

When I broke my first (Osage self-bow) after spending 20+ hours working on it and it broke on me during tillering, I was aggravated and disheartened too. But I took it as a learning experience, I realized what I did wrong and jumped back on that horse. I am now working on my second.

I wouldn't be surprised if I break this one I am working on or the one's following. I guarantee you those guys who dish out bow after bow has had many of em break on them.

Notice though they only post the one's they make, not the one's they break! Too much is riding on their reputation to post a broken bow            

Brush the dust off and get back on that horse!

[7 Lakes]

Amen to what Walt said on the first page.  Skip all the heat treatment, Perry reflex etc... just get your tillering skills down pat on a straight limb bow.  The deer this spring won't notice if you have a bit of string follow.

Get some Pignut Hickory, nothing else comes close.  You'll find everything from Pecan to who knows in the "Hickory" pile at the lumber yard.

[Mark Baker]

What Walt and 7-lakes have said...skip the heat.  Find a good osage or hick stave, and purposely overbuild it...like "longer" or "wider" perhaps than you need to.  Build some "fudge factor" into your work.   Get decent at building bows without all the fancy tricks....just carve them and shoot them - I know that sounds a bit simple, but we put a lot of pressure on ourselves with all these expectations sometimes, and tend to make things harder than they need to be.   You will get there!

[DVSHUNTER]

Success will happen. Breaking bows is part of the fun. I still break em every now and then, but its usually from attempting something silly. Walt is right about that. The last bow I broke was a mullberry. I had it shooting well at my draw just a bit light so I had to tweak it. I ended up scorching the back whilke I was heat treating it and it blew into five pieces. It was very fun! Despite what you may have read, we do post failures, they just don't happen as much as they used to.  I ruined my reputation in high school so I'm moot worried. Roy posts his breaks as well. But then his rep is about as good as mine.          
Hang in there and post pics of everything. The good, the bad, andthe ugly.

[Roy from Pa]

Trad Gang doesn't have enough band width to hold pictures of all my broken bows:)

[RedStag5728]

Originally posted by DVSHUNTER:
Despite what you may have read, we do post failures, they just don't happen as much as they used to.  I ruined my reputation in high school so I'm moot worried. Roy posts his breaks as well. But then his rep is about as good as mine.              
Hang in there and post pics of everything. The good, the bad, andthe ugly.

Haha I know it seems my post was literal, I was intending on it being a sarcastical joke. There's a lot of humor flying around on the board, so I'd figured I'd jump in on it.