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HHB bow: super stiff for its size?

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Jon_W:
This is my 5th bow attempt, trying the "new" way of drying it over fire and then fire hardening hophornbeam. The wood is a pain to work! Right now I have this blank that is 67" tip to tip, 1-3/4" wide at the fades tapering to 5/8" tips. The belly thickness is about 3/8" and the bow is holding 2-3/4" backset right now with almost no tillering.

I am hoping for a bow between 45-50# at 28" draw. When I bend the stave against the ground the limbs maybe come straight before I decide to call it too much pressure.

My question is: what do I do? The bow has to be at least 90# right now if it were tillered. I don't want to end up with a bow that has a super thin belly as my previous bows that were wide and thin don't look great and certainly shot poorly. I want this one to come out right! Any suggestions?

Also, has anyone else dealt much with HHB? It splits terribly and doesn't react well to a drawknife as it'll catch the grain and pull up more than I wanted even though the knife was popping hairs (not shaving sharp, I'll admit).

Pat B:
You could reduce the width to 1 5/8" to 1 1/2" to help loose weight if the limbs are getting too thin.

willie:
fire hardening might be to dry/stiff?

do you have some air dried you can compare with or maybe measure how much weight it takes to go to straight and see if it takes less weight to do same in a week or so after reuptaking some moisture?

too dry might blow the back

superdav95:
Willie. Here’s a hhb bow a did last year that I did heat treatment testing on.  It’s a great bow wood and very tough.  I find it tough to drawknife too and end up rasping a lot of it especially working with dry hhb.  Green it’s not so bad but still hard.  If it was me I would stay wide and go thinner.  You’ll see in my pics here that this bow is very thin but is a 55# bow at 28”. It’s about 66”ntn.  And maintains about same backseat reflex as yours now.  You can see how scorched I got the wood near the tip/ lever starts it’s dark brown.  It heat treats well and you’ll be pleased I think once you get some wood removed from the belly.  My hickory bow are similar after heat treatment.  I heat treat mine over hardwood coals for 2-3 hours depending on outside temp.  I make sure it’s a complete bake that penetrates through the wood almost to the back but not quite.  I’ve had great results with this.  Have a look hope this helps you with your decision.   Cheers and best of luck

bownarra:
Before doing anything reduce the WIDTH!
You are wide enough for a 100# bow.....no wonder it is stiff!

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