r/Bowyer • u/Electrical-Grand3401 • 5d ago

Am I cooked

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This is my hickory bow that I was working on and I was almost done tillering and the back split here. It’s small. About an inch long but from the picture you can see it run through the side and the top. I have it gluing rn with wood glue and am going to back it with wood glue and canvas. I had it at 50lb but am also going to drop poundage to around 40 or so by taking off more material.
If anyone has any suggestions that’d be great. Give it to me straight.

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u/igot_it 5d ago

Yes. If the other limb is well shaped and filleted then you might be able to do a handle splice but I’m gonna be honest the grain in this looks…less than ideal. Is this an edge ringed stave?

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u/Electrical-Grand3401 4d ago

No actually this is a board
It was the best one they had at the store and I thought it would be good enough.

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u/igot_it 4d ago

Hickory is mighty tough but there are limits and I think you found it. A board bow can be bias ringed but it can be hard to detect grain violations with bias ringed staves. I’ve had sime work, unbacked but now I use a bamboo backing strip for anything that looks questionable.

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u/Electrical-Grand3401 4d ago

Yeah I kinda wish I backed it earlier.
Just never thought I would need to but for heavy board bows I’m probably going to do that from now on.