K, so every bow i've made so far seems to have a mild propeller twist in it (all board bows).  Is this due to some characteristics of the wood/grain, or is it my righthandedness showing up in the scraping (I use a block plane and scrapers to true up the profile).  Don't have calipers, but the best i can measure doesn't LOOK like one there's uneven thickness.    

Most of mine have VERY mild twists, Im guessing working the same limb from the same side. So far it has never hurt a thing.

That's kinda what i was thinking.  Mine are pretty mild and still shoot fine (when they don't explode, but that's a different problem!     ), but i'd like to figure out what's going on before i try a recurve, or at least how I can fix it if not avoid it.

Take a good pic and lets see how much twist you have. Mine is generally the last 6-8" inches and its usually a 1/4" or so. Sometimes you cant see it if the bow isnt laying just right, but its still there.

You can use an opened wrench or even a crescent wrench to measure in a pinch.

It doesn't take much thickness to change the way a limb bends.

But the woods thickness shouldn't be the determining factor in where to remove wood.  The bend will tell you.

Are these bias/rift sawn board bows? Art

Have to get a photobucket account before i can put up any pics.

Duh! Shoulda thought of the crescent wrench!!  I'm all about using tools for other than their intended purpose!  I looked at bowskins youtube vid about removing limb twist, tried it, but removed almost an uncomfortable amount of wood w/o any results:/

As for bias/rift sawn, still kinda muddled on how to tell all the cuts.  Most of these the rings are running at a bout a 45 degree angle when looking at the cut end of the board.  This was something i was suspecting.  If the rings rotate, then i would think the board would tend to as well?

45 degrees would be rift sawn. 1/4 sawn the grain is vertical, flat sawn the grain is horizontal.

QuoteOriginally posted by k-hat:
 
Most of these the rings are running at a bout a 45 degree angle when looking at the cut end of the board.  This was something i was suspecting.  If the rings rotate, then i would think the board would tend to as well?

///// Yep, that would be my guess too////  Art

Boards like yours arent all bad, but a hard back is usually a good idea.

Thanks guys!

Looks like the boards i tend to buy are rift sawn.  I've seen some good looking 1/4 sawn specimens, but wasn't sure how they'd turn out.  

So since it's the boards (and not me    ), will i need to use heat to get rid of the twist, specially if i'm trying a recurve, in which it seems twist would be more problematic?

I call it on ur right handiness.

I've never had any twist problems with any boards yet...rift quarter or plain sawn