I have an osage bow that took about 2" of set. If I heat in reflex and then back the bow with rawhide will it hold the reflex. Thx, Paul<><
Paul, when a bow takes set it is because the wood cells in the belly have been crushed. Depending on the degree they were crushed it is possible to heat in some reflex and end up with less set. The rawhide won't help at all unless you are leery of the bows back.
My favorite bow developed a weak spot in the top limb about mid limb and went from 1/8" positive tiller to about 3/4" with plenty of added string follow.
A few weeks ago I decided to heat the limb on a form to see if I could correct it. My thought was "fix it or destroy it" which ever came first.
I really got the limb hot, not scorched but really hot. This was a snake backed bow so I only heated the belly. When I had the limb as hot as I thought it could stand I wrapped an old tee shirt around the form and limb to retain the heat and let it soak in.
After cooling, first stringing showed a slightly negative tillered top limb, after a thousand shots or so the tiller top limb tiller is about 1/8" positive with minimum string follow.
This time it worked but I have done similar attempted fixes in the past with mixed results.
I did toast the belly of a droopy limb BBO one time and change it from a string following dog of a bow to a straight limb rocket launcher.
2 in is quite acceptable. Jawge
My short answer is "I agree with George".
Here's my long answer: Fixit (http://sticknstring.webs.com/fixit.htm)