locust frets....

[bownarra]

But it always frets.
[/qu
Really???
Black locust is one of the best bow woods going.
Fretted bellies fold over but then the back tends to break, nothing 'foldy over' about backs breaking on locust.

[Marc St Louis]

But it always frets.

I've made more than a few BL bows.  Never had one fret yet

[gutpile]

my experience with frets is ,they will eventually cause failure.. for whatever reason.. be it either bad tiller or simply not wide enough for the wood and poundage.. shoot it enough and it will fold or break.. personally I wouldn't waste sinew and time .. but it is your call brother.. gut

I have always retired bows before they could break from frets, but I can't imagine it would break violently from frets.  I always picture it folding over.  I do have one well tillered maple board bow that had a few wrinkles in the grain, and frets formed there, but they never got worse.  I retired after a year and a half it because it had 2" set.

My experience is same.. no violent break but a fold over , which broke . I have a BL static recurve I sinewed and made for my daughter when she was younger.. its 54 inches 2" wide 38 @ 24.. no frets whatsoever.. bow has over 500 arrows through her.. if design is good and till is also.. BL makes a fine bow.. I can shoot that bow at my draw of 26 and it is a lil speed demon..gut

[Yooper Bowyer]

Ok, I understood that Locust had very little tolerance for error. 

When I talked about folding over rather than breaking, I meant that I don't see 5 pieces of the bow in different corners of the shop, I would expect the back to break, just not fly away.

[George Tsoukalas]

My BL bows that fret were probably due to a lack of experience in my early days.
I've made many. I learned on the wood.
I haven't had one fret in years.
Jawge

[gutpile]

5 pieces of bow...lol.. that sounds like cedar blowing lol... now that is violent.. IMO.. the worst I have experienced was cedar blowing..it blows with no warning..gut

[Yooper Bowyer]

Been there, done that.

The most explosive was actually a nettle backed red oak d bow with 50% early wood.   It was a little off, and I drew it quickly after it had been inactive for a while.  I think that was 7 pieces total.

[gutpile]

LOL... build enough and you will explode one.. sometimes the culprit is inside and not visible.. those suckers are violent.. BL.. is not one of my favorites .. my mulberry static recurve that fretted after a hundred or so shots ( didn't build it wide enough ) it sat un shot for a few years I decided to shoot it some since it was such a sweet shooter and very accurate..it just folded and cracked .. trying to unbrace it afterwards was challenging to say the least... lol... gut

[Yooper Bowyer]

I wonder if you could salvage a fretted bow by grinding off the belly wood and laminating a strip of Osage or horn to the belly. 

[Pat B]

I've done that a few times successfully but then it becomes a laminated bow and not a selfbow.

[Yooper Bowyer]

Better a shooting composite than a dead selfbow.

[boomhowzer]

I'm a big fan of loading my failed bows (I'm up to 6 of them now) up on my tillering rig and yanking on them until they snap. I feel like there is so much to be learned from exploded or otherwise destroyed bows. And its exciting! Seeing those limbs bendBendBEND then POW! or sometimes crunch and fold over, or sometimes just stay bent. So fox, maybe its time to send your favorite bow off to the happy hunting grounds in a maelstrom of splinters!