All I have a Guava selfbow that I don't shoot that often but I love the bow. It's a bit on the heavy side 76@27 butI'm still able to shoot it. After looking it over in the sun I found this. Does this mean the bow is at it's end because I don't see anything else wrong with it and It still shoots very quietly. Is this Chrysalis ?

Thank you all Pete

I refer to that as a belly fret. Not good. Through time the limb will hinge in that spot. You may slow the process by removing belly wood on both sides of the frets, and wrap the frets, and trap the back. Then re tiller, but at some point it will fail.

Chrysal, fret, same thing. Lateral line, or lines, of crushed wood fibers on the belly. From here it appears to be the case.

I concur with Bugsy. There are various methods of repairs that can be attempted, and their chances of success depend on severity and why it fretted to begin with. If the design isnt suitable for the wood species, draw weight, draw length, etc, depending on how you 'fix it', it may just fret worse or fret somewhere else.

If on the other hand it was designed well, but acquired a fret near a knot or other anomaly, I've had good success grinding them out a gluing in a patch of good wood... gotta be the right circumstances though.

76 pounds is a stout selfbow. How wide and long is it? Is it a straight bow?

Is this a bow made by Manny?

Yes it is

Manny...the Guava King... it can't hurt anything to take some weight off of the bow and it might help with the over stressed belly. Good luck.

The belly is crowned a bit, not flat? If so then, related to above comments, one option is flattening the belly, lowering draw weight to tolerable levels.

That looks like a D cross section, ala English longbow style.

I'm aware that no one will care, but:

Dictionary Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more chrys·a·lis noun noun: chrysalis; plural noun: chrysalises

a quiescent insect pupa, especially of a butterfly or moth. "the transformation from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis and, finally, adult"

I care and knew the difference as many others did I'm sure. Just elected not to make it 'a thing'.

I learned what chrysalis meant when Dean described in his book prepared, partially reduced staves as such... with the selfbow inside waiting to emerge a fresh new beautiful bow.

Chrysalis and bow chrysals/frets are entirely different.

Gotcha. Thanks.

It is a radiused belly of practically D shape but it's not a longbow per se.

Manny was a devotee of the Torges style bow whether merely by accident or on purpose.

Yep. That bow shape looks like most all my wooden bows... my unflat flatbows. Does not look like an English longbow. Not deep enough.

If you have already registered, please

sign in now

For new registrations

Click Here