30 hours working on a hickory bow -then CRACK - Family ...

Yesterday afternoon, I was in the final stages of completing a hickory bow. The stage that I was at is called tillering. Tillering is an iterative activity where stretches the bow using a tiller board, then removes the bow and removes a bit of material off the front surface with a cabinet scraper, then stretches the bow again, then removes some more material, etc. etc.

Here is a photo of my bow being tillered:

Here it is being scraped:

About 15 minutes after that photo was taken and a couple of iterations later, as I was pulling the string down into another notch on the tiller board, there was a dreaded CRACK sound then silence. A spot on the back surface of the bow had come apart:

The cracked material is on the surface and not all the way through but that has destroyed the integrity of the growth rings that dictate the shape of the bow and the bow is useless. It cannot be repaired. I am unhappy and my grandson Ethan, who helped me work on the bow in some of the earlier stages, is going to be even more unhappy when I tell him after I pick him up at school this afternoon.

Source: http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?26780-30-hours-working-on-a-hickory-bow-then-CRACK

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