Author Topic: I need help  (Read 5032 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline denny

  • Member
  • Posts: 304
    • my site
Re: I need help
« Reply #15 on: July 25, 2009, 06:19:30 pm »
I certainly can sympathize with you. All the things said are good advice. However, It is difficult to fix what one can't see, since tillering is all about seeing. Try shorting the handle on the limb side, that you seem to have more bending , only a little at atime is usually needed this is assuming you have removed enough material from the other limb. Anyway , I am about five hours away from you, up around erie, Pa. , but closer to greenville or meadville, Pa. By the way my brother lives in darby, pa. 25 miles from you. just e-mail me and i wiil be happy to guide you thru you efforts. Denny

Offline Del the cat

  • Member
  • Posts: 8,322
    • Derek Hutchison Native Wood Self Bows
Re: I need help
« Reply #16 on: July 31, 2009, 03:00:51 pm »
There are some excellent replies.
When tillering, you can take off lots of wood and have it coming back evenly on a long string, going to a short string near the final bracing height can suddenly make it look very asymetric. There is also a point where everything seems to hapen at once.
The real answer is SLOW DOWN as soon as the stave realises it's a bow and not a log!
Never work on one limb for more than a minute or so before putting it back on the tiller, use your pencil, at the sligtest sign of a weak limb or a hinge mark a big W for weak at that point and don't remove any more.
Beware of this easy to make mistake, sometimes the stiffer limb can seem to be coming down lower, as the whole bow is pivoting. E.G imagine one limb tapered and the other rigid, as you pull down the rigid limb must come down, the flexible limb will bend up in the middle. It is easy to think the stiff limb is the weak one and remove even more from the weak limb....trust me I've done it :-[
Del
Health warning, these posts may contain traces of nut.