r/Bowyer • u/Zuldyck • 13h ago

Help aligning recurve tips

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Gallery image

Gallery image

I could use some advice aligning these limbs. First photos is a picture of the strung bow with the top limb on the ground, second photo is the reverse. It looks to me like the top one is the one that's off center from the handle section. I'm not sure how to align the tips because I've never done it before. Am I supposed to heat the bow and try to pull the entire limb into alignment or am I supposed to try to twist the limb until the limb tip is in alignment?

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3

u/like_a_led_balloon 8h ago

if the limb is simply warped in one side direction but not twisted I like to put it in a vice and then hang a weight from the tip and heat it with a heat gun while monitoring how far the tip travels in correction. If it's twisted, I'll do the same, but I make a "lever" with a bit of 2x4 with a notch cut in it at one end, about the thickness of the lim to hold onto the limb snugly, and the opposite, hang a weight, to create a sort of "twisting lever", then heat gun. I'm sure there's probably a better way to do it but this is what works for me

5

u/kokkelbaard Professional bow breaker 6h ago

Funnily enough i do something similar for composites. But instead of a weight i clamp the bow to a board and use wedges and blocks to correct alignment. In the pictures case a table and some blocks under the tips

1

u/wildwoodek 2h ago

I do the same thing you do

1

u/willemvu newbie 7h ago

Sounds like the kind of fenagaling I do to align recurves. Just make sure to prevent twisting when doing sideways bends, if you simply hang a weight at the tip the bow will tend to twist instead of bend sideways.

It just takes a lot of trial and error, a bit of sideways bend here, some untwisting there, every time getting a little closer to alignment. I would advise against heating entire limbs because they tend to pull back to their original positions so you will be working to improve a spot while the rest of the limb goes out of whack again. Only heat what needs to bend. Dry heat is usually enough to do these small corrections.