Ok, while in the process of making a red oak board bow for my daughter, I bought a fairly straight grained hickory board. My question is, can a person rip a 1/8" thick strip off the belly, flip it around and glue it on the back to make a hickory backed hickory bow?
Yes.
Absolutely! Glue some reflex into that bad boy while you're at it!
How thick is the board?
You could also rip the whole thing into 1/8" strips, have a bunch of backing strips, and use them to back hickory boards with less perfect grain (i.e. easier to find boards), or ipe boards or any other boards. Good luck.