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Trying to make a horn bow...it broke!

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Mesophilic:
Thanks for the tips Bownarra. 

I'll admit that I feel like I have a child's understanding of how all this works, but a guy has to start somewhere.

The horn does go up the fades but during glue up the cracked when I clamped it, right at rhe bottom of rhe fades,  I think because the transition was too abrupt. I used G Flex epoxy and made sure I had enough to ooze and fill any gaps and it did ooze out of the cracks so maybe that helps.  The core tapers about an inch forward of the fades and I'm going to do the same with the horn to take some stress off of the areas where the crackkng occured and move the working portions of the limbs forward a bit.  Don't know if this will work, but the only other option is to reclaim the sinew and start over...which I figure I can do if the bow fails anyway so might as well experiment.  I've already resigned myself to the fact that the bow won't survive but I've learned at least a few things during this process.

The cores are hickory as it's the only wood that I've found that can hold up to how dry it is here, all other woods I've used with sinew, including osage and bamboo, get riped apart by the drying sinew. 

I made some crude tepeliks yesterday and so far so good.  Need to reduce some draw weight, my target is 50 pounds at 28 inches but in exercising the limbs it feels way more.

gorazd:
You can make tepelics with smaller radius of curvature

Mesophilic:
Well it broke. 

Didn't suprise me.  I think I learned something important as I put the puzzle together on how to make bows at high elevation with low humidity.

When I put on a second course of sinew, I don't think I thightened up my reverse string enough.  When the sinew reflexes the limb here as it dries, it will literally pull the wood off the back of the bow as it dries.  The first course went on just fine.  But the second course lifted a large sliver on the limb that broke.  I went ahead and filled with epoxy and clamped it back down.  I've never had this problem at other locations I've lived.

The fracture point is right where that sliver lifted.  In the second pic,

I ripped off the sinew and you can see the chunk of wood still stuck to it.  The arrow points to right where the original fracture is.

bownarra:
That is a shame. Really sorry that it broke.
What poundage/drawlength bow are you looking for?
Yes tightening the reverse string after gelling but before any drying takes place will help.
What strength glue are you using? Did you make it yourself or is it bought?
I have the opposite problem to you...high humidity almost constantly.

bownarra:
Having another look I suspect the sinew wasn't stuck properly. There should be bits of 'fluffy' sinew still stuck to the limb, it looks very 'clean' around the break.

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