Question about building Bow

[**DONOTDELETE**]

I have a question about building my first bow. Its going to be out of red oak and have this quick question. Whenever I am cutting out the basic shape of the bow, should I cut it with a straight profile and with a curve profile. If I do it straight, will it be ok to heat it and shape it? Example below. Pay no attention to the scale, I just whipped this up on paint real quick. Which way would be best to carve out the bow.

[elk ninja]

Tex, I am no red oak bow- jedi master, but the top one...part of the reason a board bow works is the milling of the wood enable the tensile (I think thats right) strength to work it's magic and not let the bow blow up....so you want to touch/ carve, sculpt/ etc the back (the part facing the target/animal) as little as possible.  My suggestion would be to cruise around here (go to the how to and build along sections as well as an overall search for "oak bow"  and "board bow"), look for "Ferrets" and "Gawges" links, those guys are great and will help tons.  Good luck, take pictures so you can share your building adventures with us!
Semper Fi,
Mike

[Jason Lester]

Ok let me say a few things. I here this alot when people have never built one. First off unless you want a recurve or reflex in your limbs forget the curve stuff. Your goal should be like the top one (except the tips won't taper out to nothing) The wood will naturally take some set(the curve like in your second pic) You want as little of that as you can get (unstrung). Your going to remove wood from the belly to get the wood to bend. The belly is the part you see when holding the bow up like your shooting it. Never bend it more than your draw weight.

Look for some how to's on here. And ask as often as you need to. There is alot of knowledge on here.

[Jason Lester]

I figured I'd draw in paint too.

Does that make sense?

[Dano]

These make great reference sites.
The Ferrets site
http://groups.msn.com/ferretsarcherywebpage
Jawges site
http://mysite.verizon.net/georgeandjoni/

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Thanks a million fellas. Justin