Sleek. "how does the ridge on the belly not fail in compression?" Because yew is magic
I am not sure really, but the bow has thousands of arrows through it at this point and is holding up fine. I showed it to Keenan Howard and he said, "awesome, the ridges are too small to chrysal!" He might be on to something. I have seen strong keels in illustrations of Native yew bows. I have also seen a number of James Rempp's bows that have a ridge on the belly, some in very stressed designs.
Simson, Thank you. I drew much inspiration for this bow from your work. I just weighed it and it is 18 oz. I am not sure where that puts it with the mass principle, but if anyone wants to calculate it, it has a 8" handle and 11" from fade to fade. 63" nock to nock. Again, I think this bow is overbuilt by a fair margin. If I could have hit tiller at 70# it would really be something special performance wise. Probably would have only required another 1/2 oz. of wood left in the right places to do this. I am not sure if the limbs are flattening out at draw. It does feel like it handles the stack at the back end of the draw well, like maybe there is a slight "let off effect" of the limbs flattening out. This is barely perceptible, it just feels like it doesn't stack quite as much as it should in the last inch or two. I put it through a chrono a while back and got 165 fps with a 625 grn arrow. Not super fast but enough to kill an elk
I have since heat treated the belly. With pronounced ridges, the peaks of the ridges can be thoroughly hardened over the coals. It might be a touch faster now as the unbraced profile is near flat now.
Thanks Redhawk. Yes, the belly surface is certainly increased by this design, but the wood doing the majority of the compression work is concentrated into small area. I think it would be more stable and straight. That was one of my first thoughts when I first saw photos of Simon's HLD bows.
I don't know if it would reduce Chrysals, but so far so good.
Thanks Parnell. It was quite an experience! Packing the meat out of the wilderness, I had a lot of time to relive the excitement and sweetness of it all. This was the first elk hunt where I carried tobacco with me and made offerings to the great elk spirit here and there in the beds of the elk we would nap in during the day, and then again of course after the harvest.
Thanks Soy, I guess