ELB boo backed IPE

[mrfixitwhite]

Hi all
I've just got my hands on some hopefully nice IPE and did post on another forum asking for some starting sizes to get me going on this wood, but it was rather quiet to say the least lol and Del pointed me over here -so thanks
So heres what i have so far
Handle width started at 15/16"- was suposed to be 1" and depth was approx. 1" x 72" long
tapered from the handle to nocks of 1/2" nearly square
did glue in some reflex but didnt have a lot on uncramping
it is to full draw now but no picture yet
but a question-when its unstrung it seems to follow the string about 1 1/2"! next morning its pretty straight but is this normal for ipe?
Wanted about 60# but came in about 51 so i brought the nocks in an inch  to 68"
i think i might have started a fraction narrow and gone slighty less on depth maybe but im guessing randomly now!
Any info -good or bad would be welcome !

just added a full draw pic- mmm seem to have 2 tiller stylesor is it my eyes -1 each end lol!
So which one is better!

[okie64]

It doesnt look too bad to me but it looks like the bow is sitting off-center on the tillering stick which is kinda messing with my eyes. Looks like its a little flat through the handle area to me.

[mrfixitwhite]

I have always tillered my bows with the arrow pass down the center of the stick and pulled to the nocking point- is that wrong?
Maybe thats why my tiller looks wonky to me!

[dmikeyj]

If you want it to look less wonky, widen the piece on the tillering stick that the bow sits on, say the width of your hand.  This should remove the illusion of wonkiness.
Imagining a hand in the picture makes the tiller look pretty good to me.

[DarkSoul]

1˝" of string follow ain't bad! I wouldn't worry about that. Of course, less would be better, but anything under two inches is just fine with me.
Tiller isn't perfect, but I'd call it a day. If you want to correct the tiller until it's perfect, you may loose another four pounds or so, which is probably not what you want. I don't think anything bad will happen with this type of tiller. But, if I may be so picky, the tiller could be perfected by scraping the left inner limb and the right midlimb. Furthermore, if you'd scraped the handle a bit more, it would have bend through the handle. That would have spread out the load even better, which would have meant less set. A bend through the handle boo backed ipé longbow may very well get less than one inch of set.

[toomanyknots]

1˝" of string follow ain't bad! I wouldn't worry about that. Of course, less would be better, but anything under two inches is just fine with me.
Tiller isn't perfect, but I'd call it a day. If you want to correct the tiller until it's perfect, you may loose another four pounds or so, which is probably not what you want. I don't think anything bad will happen with this type of tiller. But, if I may be so picky, the tiller could be perfected by scraping the left inner limb and the right midlimb. Furthermore, if you'd scraped the handle a bit more, it would have bend through the handle. That would have spread out the load even better, which would have meant less set. A bend through the handle boo backed ipé longbow may very well get less than one inch of set.

I think that was all very well said. I think that the tiller is pretty good too, and if it were my bow, I would probably be happy with it. However, if I had to nit pick the tiller myself, if I had to find something to improve on, I would work on the left limb just a bit. It seems to my eye that it just might be working more in one spot on that limb than the right limb, and the handle and left outer limbs seems to be a little flat. Here is what I mean:



Although the tiller may be good now, over time and use when the limb is doing most of the work in one spot, sometimes it can develop into a hinge. But that is just my 2 sense, and otherwise to me I believe it looks pretty good! (Honestly, at the same time though, it could just be my eyes and the picture playing tricks on me, I am bad about that and tiller photos... at first I thought the line of the cabinets was a string and you had the bow braced really high in the third pic, for example. LOL) Nice bow.

[okie64]

I have always tillered my bows with the arrow pass down the center of the stick and pulled to the nocking point- is that wrong?
Maybe thats why my tiller looks wonky to me!

When I tiller my bows I always put the exact center of the bow on the center of the tiller stick since that is where the point of pressure will be in my hand when I am shooting it. My arrow passes are always somewhere between 1" to 1.5" above that.

[mrfixitwhite]

many thanks for the advice -
toomanyknots- yes after i looked at the picture that long line you drew on the right limb to the tip did look somewhat straighter so i have given that a bit of sanding in that area
I think as its coming in under the weight i was after i will go as suggested -leave it be!
Bend throught the handle tiller isn't one ive aimed for before but one bow i did once ,did feel bendy in the handle area- Very odd feeling when shot! lol
the cast it has it pretty good so i think an 80lb bamboo back ,purpleheart, action boo,ipe glue up could be on the cards
I shoot a 75lb 4 lam at the minute which i like alot and very pretty looking too! lol
again thanks for the replies
Im gonna do the photo thing again as it really gives you a chance to study stuff for a bit longer  and i'll adjust my tiller placement to make it easier on the eyes 

[markinengland]

A lot of the tillering can be done with the bow at brace height. At the moment you don't have the limbs bending evenly in their length or in comparison with each other. Personally my preference is to stress the bow evenly.
With the bow at brace height a short straight "stick" (or six inch ruler) can be used against the bow belly to judge the arc. Right now I judge your bow to be bending too much in the left hand limb at about mid limb, and too much in the right hand limb closer to the handle. You are also bending the bow too much at this stage of tiller.
My advice would be to slow down, check tiller at brace, pull no more than your desired final draw weight and get the bow balanced at brace and low pull before going to these more extremes draw lengths and weights.