Back Chrysalling

[Cody Cantrell]

I have a osage self bow that I have been working on and I used dry heat and mineral oil to bend it into a reflex deflex profile.  On the back of the top limb about 2/3 of the way to the tip there is some very small chrysalling.  Has anyone had any experience with this.  Should I fear this bow coming apart on me?  Thanks for any help.

Cody

[Frenchymanny]

Hi Cody,

Can you post a picture?

F-Manny

[Pat B]

What you are calling chrysals are probably drying checks. Unless you have bent your bow backwards severely. Chrysals only appear on the belly because they are compression fractures.
  Generally speaking checks are not lethal to a bow unless they run off of the side. You can put some super glue in the checks and they should be OK. Pics will help with the diagnosis.   Pat

[Cody Cantrell]

Sorry no pics.  I put reflex into the bow with heat and ended up getting chrysals in one spot on the back.  They aren't drying checks.

[Pat B]

If you put chrysals in the back then the bow is dead in my opinion. By doing so you have violated the grain and when strained it will break at that spot.
  Pat

[buckeyebowhunter]

yea chrysalls suck, they happened on my first selfbow, and i didnt think much of them at the time but they continued to get worse as I kept shooting and then my bows back started to splinter. So there isnt much you can do its just one of those things

[Eric Krewson]

My primary osage bow started getting tiny back chrysals in several places two years ago. This is after 5 years of hard use and over 100K shots. I had never seen back chrysals before in any osage bow so it came as a surprise.

Here is the latest crop of back chrysals from this year.

 

I put a sinew wrap over the area and kept shooting. More appeared on the other limb so I wrapped them as well. When the third place showed this year I made myself another bow. My bows performance hasn't changed and I hate to make a wall hanger out of it so I am going to bamboo back it in the future.

Here is my patch.

 

[Frenchymanny]

Thanks Eric for the pictures. I have a question for you:
What are the specs of your bow?

F-Manny

[George Tsoukalas]

Those are cracks. I've had those on backs. Chrysals are compression fractures on the belly by definition. They go across the grain. Drying checks run with the grain. Usually on the belly. Cody, sounds like you got over zealous with the bending. You cracked it. We can't give you a fix unless we see it but a sinew wrapping seems appropriate. Jawge

[Eric Krewson]

The bow is 65"NTN, started out at 65#@25" but I have retillered it several times as I became a better bow maker, narrowed the tips and dropped poundage as I got older. It is 58#@25" now.

I call them chrysals George because they look so similar.

[Frenchymanny]

Thanks for the info Eric