Tillering a Hop-hornbeam

[Thomas]

Greetings. I have recently started a hop-hornbeam bow and tonight, got it to floor tiller. I got my new heat gun fired up to attempt my first heat-treating. It was running as I was getting things ready and it started on fire. Oh well, this one won't be getting any heat. I haven't built a self bow for a while (have been building bamboo-backed bows) and have a tillering question. I have always tillered self-bows by removing wood, then flexing the limb, then check the tiller, then remove wood,flex limb, thenckeck tiller etc, until you reach close to draw weight. I have had good success with this, but have heard about letting the bow "sweat" at brace height to reduce weight. What does this entail and at what point in the process doe you let it "sweat". Thanks.

[Timo]

Thomas, I have only built one HHB bow, so can't help you much on that. I do however sweat my bows alot during the process. As soon as I can get a clean looking brace, I let them set for 15 mins,unbrace and to see if the bow is taking fatigue, if not I will brace it again and leave it an a while longer.I feel this helps the limbs to come to a positive settling point. If they show fatigue, I put them back in the hot box and wait another day.

I then begin the tillering process, and will let it sweat periodically along the way whenever it seems the that wood removal doesn't want to register. Sometimes up to an hour.

After the bow is pretty much done, shot in a good bit, I will brace it and let it set maybe half a day, rechecking it from time to time to make sure any changes are being corrected.

[Thomas]

Thanks Tim, that helps me a lot. I'm going to get a good start on it tonight.

[George Tsoukalas]

I've never sweated bows. I like the exercise of flexing them on the t tree. LOL. Jawge

[Thomas]

Hi George. I've only done it by flexing them on the tree as well, but like the idea of sweating them as long the tiller is good. Thanks for the input.