fairly urgent longbow question

[Jon]

Greetings all,
I have a problem with my bow..

Having just made a new string for my longbow (that I haven't shot in apprx. 3 months) and warming it up again, preparing to shoot it this afternoon, I noticed compression fractures along the belly of the bow.
I'm not sure if they have just recently appeared - they may have been there before (it's just a would have let them pass for scratches before i went on my bow-making course). So...


A- is it dangerous to shoot the bow?
B- will they dramatically hinder performance?
C- Is there any way of getting rid of them besides putting in a bloom?



The bow is a D-shaped longbow, self-hickory, 47lbs@28''. (I didn't know until recently that hickory is bad in compression)



Thanks

[Jonathan B.]

I wouldn't use it but that's just me. English style Longbows tend to fail very energetically as in they pretty much explode.

[Aaron]

Definitely wouldn't risk using it, and I've never seen or heard of a compression fracture being repaired. You could probably grind down the belly of the bow and glue a new piece of compression strong wood to it, the retiller with the hickory as the new back. But that's a whole lot of work and may not be worth it to you...

With the new string, did you make sure the brace height was the same as it was with your old string? If the new string was any shorter, drawing it may have over-drawn the bow. Just something to think about.

[Jon]

@Aaron, it would be worth it for me, although I can't really get any of the right wood here, and I don't trust my woodworking skills that much.

The string is probably about 1/2 inch higher or less, but I needed to adjust it anyway...