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Heat treating boo backed bow

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Eric Garza:
I would heat treat on a form before glue up. I made a hickory backed heat treated hickory bow similar to what you are proposing, and it turned out well. I tillered the belly as if I were making a bow that was ~15 pounds lighter than my goal, then heat treated both limbs while it was clamped flat to a 2x4. I then glued the bow up as normal, and tillered from there. It didn't require too much wood removal, so the belly still had some visible temper.

I have since set this bow aside though and will probably never hunt with it. I glued in way too much reflex and the bow is hard to string. It is also very unstable, and sometimes spontaneously unstrings itself by twisting around. It hasn't broken though.

Kidder:
I opted to heat treat it on a reflex form with 2 inches of reflex. Kept about 1.5 inches of reflex. Plan to glue in another inch or so of Perry reflex. It was tillered a little lighter than normal but still probably on the heavy side where I will lose a bit of the heat treat. I also had a little bit of wrap around scorching but I doubt this will be an issue as it should all theoretically be under compression with the boo carrying the tension load. We shall see…

superdav95:
Looks good brother.  I think you’ll be pleased with the performance you get. 

Kidder:
Thanks Dave. So one thing I didn’t account for was the cupping that would occur from the heat treat. Once I flattened the boo I realized that the back of the hickory belly was no longer flat. So had to spend some time on the wheel edge of my belt sander - couldn’t use the flat top because of the reflex. But I got it acceptably flat again. It had taken just over 2 inches of heated in reflex. I glued in another 2 inches of Perry reflex. So it’s sitting on the form with just over 4 inches of reflex. I’ll know how much it keeps when I unwrap it later today but I’d guess it keeps almost all of it given that half is heated in.

Kidder:
Came out of glue up with over 3” of reflex. So kept about an inch of Perry reflex.

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