Whitewood buildalong(finish pics added)

[okie64]

Alright, let me start out by saying this will be my first buildalong so if I leave out any details please forgive me. This bow will be for a friend of mine that has been asking me to build him a shorter hickory bow to hunt with for next year. I dont build very many bows under 64" so this will be a little different for me. I have some hickory that I cut and split last April that I will use on this build.

This piece is 61" tip to tip so I should end up with around 59" ntn. It has some natural deflex and a little sideways bend at one end to it but I'll take that out with some heat later.
 

Oops, forgot to take pics of a couple of steps. I laid it out 1.5" wide out to midlimb and then tapered it down to 1/2" nocks and cut out the profile. I then drew out my taper lines on the sides and rasped the belly down until I got it to floortiller a couple of inches. After I got the tips moving a couple of inches I put it in the form to take the deflex out and add a couple inches of reflex and heated it up with the heat gun. I went ahead and toasted the belly to a dark brown color since it is still pretty thick and most of the brown wood should be scraped off by the time the bow is finished.
 
Here it is after sitting in the form and cooling for 24 hours. The limb that was deflexed still sprang back up about 1/2" but I think it will be fine.
   

[AZ_Shooter]

Looking good, keep it coming.  By the way, what is your buddy's draw length?

[okie64]

My friends draw length is 27". I know the bow is kinda short for that draw length but I think I can make it work. My experience has been that heat-treated hickory is completely different from untreated hickory as far as compression strength. If it looks like its going to take too much set I may have to change my game plan. I should get to work on it some more tomorrow.

[mwosborn]

Nice build along - looking forward to updates.  Thanks for sharing.

[razorback]

You could try flipping the tips a little to help with the string angle. Looks real good so far I will enjoy watching this one.

[okie64]

Yeah I may end up reflexing the tips a little bit Razorback. Although I havent had much luck trying to induce sharp bends with hickory.

I actually heat-treated this stave about a week ago and its been inside my house in controlled humidity since then so I figure its been long enough to start bending it a little. The heating stiffened the limbs up quite a bit so I rasped the belly down to where the limbs felt like they were bending about the same and put a long string on it. Heres what it looked like.
 

The left limb was stiffer so I took about 30 strokes off of it with the ferriers rasp and I also took about 20 strokes off the right limb since the bow is still really heavy and I want to get a short string on it as soon as possible. I checked it on the tree again with the long string and got it bending good enough to get a short string on it. Heres what it looked like.
 

In the pic above its hitting 50# at 14" so now its just a matter of working the draw weight down and makin sure no hinges or flat spots develop. I took about 40 strokes off of each limb from fades out to 8" from the tips with my knife/scraper and checked it again.
 

[razorback]

Watch out for that area 1/4 out the right limb. Looks like a hinge. Don't stress that area until you get it worked out.

[okie64]

I think the spot you are talkin about is where there is a natural hump in the stave razorback.  Worked on it some more and got it out to 50# at 22" and lookin pretty good. I dont use a tillering tree after 22" so the rest of the tillering I will do in hand and with a mirror. It started with 2" of reflex and is down to 1/2" now but I'm going to go ahead and tiller it on out a little farther before I decide whether to add more reflex or not.

Heres the last pic on the tree, 50#at 22".
 

[George Tsoukalas]

Looks good. Maybe needs a touch more than both limbs near the handle particularly the left limb. Jawge

[okie64]

Thanks George, I think I got it bending a little more in that area.

I tillered it on out to 28" and it ended up with 1.5" of stringfollow so I decided to reflex the outer limbs a little bit to get the tips back in front of the handle. Heres a pic of the form I used for that.
 
I also cut out a shelf, shaped the handle a little bit and sanded some of the shellac off the back. The stave has a bunch of ridges and valleys on the back and I only sanded the high spots but I kinda liked the way it ended up looking.
 

[okie64]

After I took it off the caul and let it sit for a couple of days I pulled it on  the scale and it hit 50# at 26". I scraped some off of both limbs and got it back to 50# at 28" and heres what the full draw looked like.
 

After about a hundred shots it took a little set in the inner limbs but still ended up with 3/4" of reflex. It kinda has a little r/d profile to it now. It shoots hard and straight. I'll get some finished pics up in a day or two.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Nice tiller okie. Cant wait to see her prettied up man.

[okie64]

I got it all sanded down and put 4 coats of tung oil on it so here it is. It ended up with 3/4" of reflex and 50# at 28" and 59" long ntn. It is a really nice shooting bow.
 
 

The back of the bow ended up looking pretty cool
 
 

Antler tip overlays from a small buck I killed last year.
 

 

Heres the hickory tree that this stave came from so if anybody wants to take a guess at what kind of hickory it is be my guest. I would like to know so I could write it on the belly of the bow. One guy told me it was mockernut but my grandpa always told me these were called black hickories.
 

[mwosborn]

Nice work!  I like the natural design in the back too.

[PEARL DRUMS]

That bow is working. I love it, cool cambium on the back.

[vanillabear?]

[Roy from Pa]

I guess it's ok, Okie:)

[Ranger44]

Pretty nice looking bow. Thanks for taking the time to share the process.  I can never see too many of these build-a-longs.

[coaster500]

There you go Okie "I guess it's ok, Okie:)" That's 5 Stars from Roy  

Great looking back on that bow, Nice job!!!

[okie64]

Thanks for all the compliments guys, especially you Roy. I was wandering if I was gonna get your approval on this one.