Noob Early tiller help

[tgtmatt]

I know i'm not that far at tiller yet but I'm just being overly cautious I suppose as this is my first bow. The draw is only at 13" as i'm not sure how far I can pull it without a splinter, etc.

[tgtmatt]

I also am not sure why my bow is pulling to the right as I tiller it. Could be that my tillering "stick" isn't as good as it should be or other reasons?

[BOWMAN53]

Your right limb is stiffer so take a little of that side before you touch the left side again. Move the string left or right  to get the bow leveled. Your bow needs to be leveled on the tree or you'll never get the tiller right cuz your looking at it lopsided.

[George Tsoukalas]

Did you string it? I don't understand what bowman mans by moving the string left or right. Anyway, info on my site. Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/index.html

[tgtmatt]

Okay, Thank you. I'll check out your site. What section should I look under? I also have a thickness question. I have my 72" red oak bow down to about 5/8 2" from the handle and about 3/8 2" inches away from the tips. I'm only getting it drawn to about 13" because i'm not sure it can handle much farther. I know it's different for every bow but what would be the average thickness of a red oak bow around my length?

[BOWMAN53]

I meant to slide the string while its on the notch of the tree to even it out.  You know like if you don't pull it straight down then it stays lopsided. Sorry I wasn't clearer.

[tgtmatt]

I adjusted that it seemed to work. Now I just need a set of extra eyes to show me how my tiller looks. Here it is at 14.5"

[Weylin]

I agree with bowman, your left side is bending more than your right side. That means you need to take some even scrapes off of the right side until it bends the same as the left. I know this doesn't sound helpful (I was in your shoes a couple years ago) but now that you have the bow bending don't worry about the thickness measurements, the only thing that matters now is the tiller. Take wood off where it looks stiff and leave it alone where it's bending too much. when the tiller looks good then you can take a little more wood off with a scraper and bend it a little further and repeat until you see another problem to fix. It's final thickness will be what ever it needs to be for your design, your draw weight, your draw length and your particular piece of wood. There's no way anyone can know what that's going to be. There are just too many variables.

As for how far you should be bending it, that will depend on the draw weight you are shooting for and how the tiller looks. You never want to pull a bow past it's intended draw weight. SO if you want a 50 lb. bow and it is pulling 50 lbs. at 13" then don't pull it past 13" until you taken more off. But more importantly you should only pull the bow far enough to see a problem with the tiller. If you see some thing uneven at 10" don't pull it to 13" until it looks even.

[Bryce]

I agree with bowman, your left side is bending more than your right side. That means you need to take some even scrapes off of the right side until it bends the same as the left. I know this doesn't sound helpful (I was in your shoes a couple years ago) but now that you have the bow bending don't worry about the thickness measurements, the only thing that matters now is the tiller. Take wood off where it looks stiff and leave it alone where it's bending too much. when the tiller looks good then you can take a little more wood off with a scraper and bend it a little further and repeat until you see another problem to fix. It's final thickness will be what ever it needs to be for your design, your draw weight, your draw length and your particular piece of wood. There's no way anyone can know what that's going to be. There are just too many variables.

As for how far you should be bending it, that will depend on the draw weight you are shooting for and how the tiller looks. You never want to pull a bow past it's intended draw weight. SO if you want a 50 lb. bow and it is pulling 50 lbs. at 13" then don't pull it past 13" until you taken more off. But more importantly you should only pull the bow far enough to see a problem with the tiller. If you see some thing uneven at 10" don't pull it to 13" until it looks even.

+1

[adb]

Very difficult to see your tiller shape with all the clutter in the background. Do you have a clean wall you could put it against?

[Del the cat]

Very difficult to see your tiller shape with all the clutter in the background. Do you have a clean wall you could put it against?

+1 and get the tiller stick vertical too.
The devil is in the detail. You are looking for tiny errors in the curve so you need to make it as easy as possible to see them.
Del

[George Tsoukalas]

Yes, you are getting advice. Remove some wood from the right limb. Have you strung it? Ican't really tell if you are using the long string or not.  Don't worry about the thickness. Let the tiller determine what the thickness will be. Jawge

[tgtmatt]

Thank you all so much, this really helped me out. I'm going to make myself a pulley tillering tree on my clean garage white wall. haha. I'll be sure that will help me notice the flaws better.

Should I round off the belly's edges as best i can?

[seabass]

no square edges.square edges are bad.

[Eric Krewson]

All my bows have square edges until I get to the final sanding, nothing bad about square edges.

Here is why I keep my edges square. When I lay out a bow I taper the limbs on the back and the sides. For laying out the sides I square the edges and pick a arbitrary thickness at the fades depending on the poundage of the bow I plan to make. 1/2" thick is my usual starting point as I make a slightly rounded bellies,  most of my bows are in the 50# range.

I drop this thickness measurement 1/16" every 6" down the limb until I get to about 8" from the tip at which point I keep the measurement constant. I join the marks with a continuous line to show the taper.

I call these lines on the side the bows my" road map". As you are thinning the back of your bow never cut through these lines or run "off the road" and you will solve a lot of problems with limbs that dogleg off to the side when you string the bow. Your craftsman ship will be much better as well with very evenly shaped limbs.

If you thin the limbs down to your lines and you still have too much poundage make your 1/2" starting point mark 7/16" and remark your limbs for more wood removal.

I see a lot of bows with very uneven edges on the sides, I know the makers didn't map out their bows properly and "ran off the road" during the bows construction.