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Recurve out of alignment. Is this limb twist?

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Eric Krewson:
East fix, heat the belly of the limb so the skins won't get toasted, put the limb tip in a padded vise; while sighting down the limb hold the handle and twist the limb lightly in the opposite direction of the twist a little past straightened, hold the pressure for about 10 seconds and release. Check your progress and repeat as necessary to get the tip in line. When everything looks good let the tip cool and you are good to go; the twist won't come back.

When I build one of my short, tight recurves, I have to do the above on at least one of the limb tips.

I never had much luck moving wood from one side or the other to bring a limb back into line except on bamboo backed bows, heat works every time. I get limb twist with perfectly even limbs side to side, it is just the nature of wood.

I know my limbs are matched because I use a contour gage to check my limb and tip shaping.

ajooter:
Now thats a doohickie I need!! Very cool.  I hope you can get that bow lined up.  I have put the cart before the horse many times myself.  With my lack of patience I soemtimes wonder how I ever make a decent bow.

WhistlingBadger:
Ajooter, yeah, impatience has resulted in many unsuccessful bows and even more unsuccessful hunts.  I'm more patient than I used to be...but that isn't saying much.   ;D

Eric is the king of cool bow-making doohickeys.  I still use your tillering gizmo you send me. 

Can I use dry heat on juniper?  I've heard that's a big no-no.

I still haven't made it back out to the shop to check on the thickness.  Hoping to get to it this afternoon.

pierce_schmeichel:
Hmm yeah I have not had much success heat bending juniper dry it gets very brittle. When it is green wood you can still shape it quite a bit but the thing with your bow there is that it is likely due to the different stiffness on each side of the wood. And since it's likely that all of your heat bending work would just go right back to where it was.

pierce_schmeichel:
Ooo you could just try heat treating the belly side of the bow that is less stiff. Over time it would likely go back to where it was but if it worked it would tell you exactly what the problem is. Juniper surprisingly does react to heat treatments decent enough. If you try this be careful about not using too much heat and then also heat the side of the bow that the tip is bending away from. Worth a shot...maybe and then while it cools you could try to slowly just twist it back with your hand, a vise, or a clamp. But again it wouldn't be a permanent fix

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