You have to admire Dean and his ability to get someone to thinking. Dean's article, the way it was presented, makes a strong case for negative tillered bows. I know some of the positive tillered bows that I gave away to certain individuals could have benefited from a stronger upper and/or lower limb. So Dean's argument does have merit.
I like to think that everybody is a little bit right and everybody is a little bit wrong on certain matters. I think that's the case here. Dean presented his case on equal tip weight/strain alone. Here, a bow can be tillered for above or below of the dimensional center of the bow depending on where the greater hand pressure lies. It would be easy to build a bow with a two foot lower limb and a four foot upper limb and have equal tip strain. But then you would have to account for unequal limb mass.
Jumping back to the bows I gave away that ended up with more positive tiller than desired, these bows were gripped futher above dimensional center than designed creating greater strain on the upper limb. Here a more negative tiller bow would have been approperate. Same thing happened to many of my bows where the shooters applied to much heel pressure than designed. Here a greater positive tiller would have surficed.
But IMO, to get it right, you have achieve both equal limb strain AND limb mass (as close as possible). Then using the proper grip per arrow pass layout to maintain equilibrium, you will only have a need for a positive tiller bow. Adding "equal limb mass" only adds to creating even less shock to the bow. ART
