Is it possible to recondition a wood bow?

[TimH]

I have a light weight bow that has a lot of string follow and at this point no longer contains enough strength in the limbs to really shoot it well. Is it possible to get it to flatten out and then back it with something to add some strength back in the limbs?

[Ol Man]

Don't flatten it out... You could use heat and reflex the limb tips (maybe about 10" or so) or just back it with sinew. If you put some reflex in the tips you could probably move them about 1 1/2"- 2" and it would most likely settle in about 1/2" lower.

This would give you more draw weight.

P.S. - this is not string follow but, it is called "set".

[TimH]

What's a good distance to reflex from the tips?

[Ol Man]

Tim,

I gave you the dimensions in my first post... about 10" of reflex in the tips and maybe 1/2"-2" of reflex . (The tip should be that distance - in a nice gentle curve.) Good luck!

[Selfbowman]

I reflex at about 9'' from the tips and take the string nochs about 1 1/2 to 2'' . You can also heat temper the bow with a heat gun and get the set out and put about 10 pds on it. I think the heat tempering is in Bowyers Bible vol. Four.

[TimH]

Thanks for clarifying Ol Man, I wasn't sure exactly what you meant.

I'll see what I can do with all of this advice and hopefully end up with something better than where I started.