Ian, I use a considerable amount of hickory and found that not all hickory is created equal. For instance I can pick up a piece that has thick, dense growth rings and is seems to take the punishment better than the thinner rings. Also, I have felt some hickory wood that is more spongy and it seems to need to be thicker to achieve the same draw weights.The spongy stuff takes allot more string follow. I keep wondering if these trees had bad nutritian or bad growing conditions or something adverse. The spongy stuiff feels light weighted in hand. On the heavy bows I select thick growth rings and heavier weighted wood and have not had troubles with cracks or chrysals. I do see allot more string follow on the hickory bows than I do the bamboo or hickory backed ipe and osage. The Ipe really makes a good bow with a hickory backing. If I can ever help you please let me know.
Hi rudderbows
Thanks for the advise this bow ended up 140lb @ 32 very little set surprisingly, and shot very fast I was at a shoot with the finsbury archers and was able to strait shoot most of the roving target,
But the hickory almost failed, it has a vertical crack mid limb so this weekend I'm going to make another and repair this one,
On a side note with your heavy bows do you find 1/4 hickory cracks often in this way, how do you have the hickory on the back of your bows.
[/quote]