Saturday Bow

[gstoneberg]

....Now, I'm not a skilled or knowledgeable enough bowyer to know all the negativie ramifications of "set"...if that limb took a bit of set to match the rest of the tiller, would that be a problem?

Not necessarily.  Sometimes, as in the case with my trade bow, I actually plan to allow some set in a limb to let it match the other one.  If that happened here, the set would only be putting the tips in the same plane, the limb bends would not match.  I would rather get it all bending because it makes a more durable bow (in addition to looking better).  I haven't given up by any means.  As I look at the picture again, I think I need to thin most of that thicker section.  I'm betting I assumed it needed to be thicker there, but the reality is that narrowing a limb has less impact on draw weight than thickness does.  I've left too much thickness.  The challenge is that removing thickness can very quickly change the draw weight, or in this case, cause a hinge, so I'll have to go slow and exercise each wood removal a lot.  And, to get back to your question, a little set is not a big deal.  Bows with a little set often shoot great.  It would mean that my tillering wasn't perfect, or my design was too aggressive for the wood.  Usually the former more than the latter.

You said 45-50lbs at 28" right?  We should make that easily.  With a little heat treating we could probably make 60lbs.

I like that we have both the wire work and bow work in progress at the same time, and captured with pictures.  I think you'll beat me done though.

George

[PEARL DRUMS]

George try narrowing that left limb rather than thinning, it may react quicker for you....?

[gstoneberg]

I don't think I can PD.  It's only about 3/4" wide through that whole stretch which is why I left it with more depth at first.  When I started, the limb was basically square there.  It is acting like a molly lever right now, and it looks like a very crooked one.  Maybe I should have gone with a molly layout?  I have been narrowing the other limb outboard of the knot to get it bending and that worked nicely.  Maybe I'm just being a chicken, but I hate to go any narrower that far in from the tip.  I took a picture of the bow standing up, maybe it'll better show my problem.



This bow is the one on the right.  It's smaller sister is to the left.  The problem area is from the drywall joint up about 8".

George

[PEARL DRUMS]

Thats a tuffy. I do know that taking widht away requires much less material removal to get equal results. Maybe try taking more off the widht and thickness? Or, try a real broad radiused edge on the belly to weaken it up some in that spot. 

[gstoneberg]

Yea, I did a little radiusing last night.  I'll do more of that next crack at it.  Not used to working a limb that narrow so I'm being over cautious probably.  Our ELB friends would work right through this I suspect.  Thanks.

George

[PEARL DRUMS]

As you know slow and steady wins the race!

[Lee Slikkers]

Great looking wire art of the falconer!

Hey George & PD, if the wood is behaving and all things being equal do you prefer to tiller/reduce # but side (width) tillering or belly (thickness) tillering?  I assume once you lay out your preferred profile then most if not all the wood to be removed would come from the belly, correct?

[gstoneberg]

Lee, for me I just go with the flow.  What Jawge said about letting the stave determine the design is how I try to work.  If I feel like the limb's on the wide side I would narrow it.  If I feel good about the width I would take some thickness off.  If the limb feels like it's getting too thin, I would go back to taking off width.   In total, I probably use thickness tillering 90% of the time.

George

[Lee Slikkers]

Thanks for the reply George...makes good sense to me, I have pretty much only employed thickness tillering up to this point but that it likely because I shape my initial layout pretty dang tight to what I hope to end up with in the end.  That leaves mostly just the thickness as the variable...I'm sure I'll run into a build that I have not layed out correctly though and will run out of thickness forcing me to use the width tillering method.

Thanks again for your time.

[bcbull]

relly looks good george love the wire work to  if was me i see where u coming from about thinnin it so id just scrape  and use sand paper to dial it in after u strightn out the w
twist  nice job brock

[gstoneberg]

Brock, I'm not sure I need to remove that twist.  I'm going to shoot it a little before I decide.  There's a check in the back  out towards the tip and I'm avoiding putting any heat there like the plague.  If I do heat it it'll be as far in as I can get away with.  I've been thinning just the one side to help with the twist and it's been working.  Hopefully I can keep that up through the rest of the tillering and get out without more heat.

George

[bcbull]

good idea george i fill hem lil checks with loc tite 495  and a lot of time s i  only remove a bit of wood on the oppiste side  i want the twist to go tryin line it up it helps  i do make a heck of a lot of bows like those just my experince hope it helps  brock

[mikekeswick]

Personally i'd leave the width well alone or else the narrow section will be more strained than everywhere else if it has the same bend as the other limb. The thickness should be reduced to bring it into tiller. You can see from the pictures that the narrow limb is still a fair bit too stiff. Again ,personally, I would be trying to get more bend in the outer limbs.

[gstoneberg]

This was a rough night of bow work.   Began working on this bow and as I began to get the outer limb moving on the curvy limb, 2 bad things happened.  First, a crack appeared in the belly of the limb tip, about 4" in from the tip.  I sanded on it and now I cannot find it anymore.  It's moot, because of the other problem.  There was a check in the back of the bow that ran off the edge about 2" from the limb tip.  As I feared, as the limb began to bend out near the tip it opened up.



Here you can see where it is relative to the tip.



I'm reluctant to tiller any more before I wrap that spot (which will fix the other problem which is on the belly near where this check starts).  I had the bow to a little over 50lbs @ 27" when I stopped.  This means that tip is going to be a little stiff as I won't be able to work that spot once it's wrapped.  I'll PM you Makenzie so we can talk about whether this is going to work for you.

I definitely had the manure touch tonight.  I went on to work on my yew stave and quickly got the tiller so messed up I've likely turned it into a kids bow.   Rather than ruin anything else I came back in the house.

George

[makenzie71]

I've learned that sometimes the best thing you could possibly do for your bows (or cars, motorcycles, rifles, houses, etc for that matter) is to simply go to bed.  I've actually been there quite a few times this season.

Don't worry about it if that limb is a bit stiff.  I would like it if I could safely draw the bow 28~30", but the priority is that it not explode.  I would rather mark my arrows and short-draw myself than to risk breaking something you have so much work invested in.  I'm glad you're working the tiller down...I probably wouldn't have noticed the check and broken the thing.