Drying cracks in core
I steam bent a hickory core and came back and looked at it in a few hours and it had drying cracks running up and down the limb following the grain of the wood. The cracks are about 1 mm wide and 4 to 5 inches long. Will the cracks effect the core, would you go ahead and use it or would you start on another core? Riley
You need to wait for other comments from experienced bowmakers; but when dissecting old Chinese bows, I see that they have used cores with cracks and simply relied on glue filling the cracks to make up structure. It is not necessarily a disaster. It is more a question of whether the wood you chose was basically unsuitable in the first place.
Look here:
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/visible_bow/visible.htm
Look here:
http://www.atarn.org/chinese/visible_bow/visible.htm
Thanks for the reply.