Hickory Recurve Selfbow in an American Flatbow Style

I knew something didn’t look right, and it took me a minute to actually notice one of the recurves had straighten back out. Back in the steam but this time I set them it with heat. I figured I might as well heat treat the entire bow. I used the heat gun on high, kept it moving and got it warn enough to just start the color to turn. Probably took a total of 10 or 15 minutes.

Then I noticed one recurve was set more than the other due to one being set with heat and the other not. So once again I steamed the opposite end and got the two recurves the same. Lessons being learned by the boat loads.

After a couple days I decided it was time to string it back up. I literally could not string the bow. I simply was not strong enough. I’d bet at this point it was over 100#. So back to tillering i go. Starting back with the spoke shave. When I finally got a long string on it I was pulling 40# in about 4″. I didn’t have a lot of time over the next few days, but it amazed me the amount of work to get it back to 50#. I’ve probably got an hour or two every day this week. So my question, is it normal for heat treating to up the poundage that much.