Need a tillering check. Maple Mollegabet.

[munkinstein]

For just your second bow you took on a more time consuming design.Maybe make a few more first of a simpler design to good tillering techniques,an eye for an even bend,and to get a feel what happens with wood removal etc.You'll have to face the fact that to adjust your limbs to bending evenly you will lose some draw weight.Bending evenly first while the bow is a little over weight not going over your designated full draw weight.Even removal of wood to keep em that way and creep up on your designated full draw weight.Don't feel bad everyone has at some time been where you are right now.I'll still say not bad for your second bow though.You might want to get a weight scale too.After correcting your limbs you could pike it to raise your draw weight if you like.You've got enough length.

What do you mean by "pike it"?

[Roy]

Pike means cutting a little off each limb tip. By making the bow shorter, it will gain weight. I'm not positive but I believe you will gain about 5 pounds by taking one inch off each limb tip.

Do you have a gizmo tool for tillering? If not here is a link on how to make and use one, they really help with tillering a bow.
http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=125;t=001047

[SLIMBOB]

The gizmo will work.  Not a fan of them for stave bows.  It's a good tool for your bow making tool box, but use with discretion.  Easier IMO to simply run a straight edge (I have a caliper with a 4 inch rule) along the belly of the bow while braced.  Start at the fade and move the straight edge toward the tip.  Flat spots will show little daylight.  Mark these areas with a pencil and scrape.  Hinged areas will show a bigger gap.  These areas need to be marked and left alone.  Scrape on either, sometimes both side of the hinge, until the gap is fairly uniform from fade to just before the tip.  Pearl Drums has discussed this technique in a lot of his posts.  You should see here that the hinge has far more daylight than the surrounding areas.  Blackhawk is exactly right, don't pull it past brace until you have it evened out on both limbs.  Then draw it a few inches on the tree and check it again.  Fix these areas at low brace, brace, 10 inches, 15 inches for example.  Now you won't be damaging the bow by unduly stressing a weak spot at full draw as you won't have a weak spot. 

[munkinstein]

The gizmo will work.  Not a fan of them for stave bows.  It's a good tool for your bow making tool box, but use with discretion.  Easier IMO to simply run a straight edge (I have a caliper with a 4 inch rule) along the belly of the bow while braced.  Start at the fade and move the straight edge toward the tip.  Flat spots will show little daylight.  Mark these areas with a pencil and scrape.  Hinged areas will show a bigger gap.  These areas need to be marked and left alone.  Scrape on either, sometimes both side of the hinge, until the gap is fairly uniform from fade to just before the tip.  Pearl Drums has discussed this technique in a lot of his posts.  You should see here that the hinge has far more daylight than the surrounding areas.  Blackhawk is exactly right, don't pull it past brace until you have it evened out on both limbs.  Then draw it a few inches on the tree and check it again.  Fix these areas at low brace, brace, 10 inches, 15 inches for example.  Now you won't be damaging the bow by unduly stressing a weak spot at full draw as you won't have a weak spot.

Advice duly noted, thank you.  I will fix the hinge, and not draw the bow until then.  I will probably end up cutting some wood of the tips to bring the draw weight up, it's already looking much better from the last picture I posted, but it also feels a great deal lighter.  At least with this bow I will have learned a lot.  Ahain thanks for all your advice, this community has been a great help and very welcoming, hopefully I can give it back one day when I'm a little more experienced at this bow building malarkey.

[munkinstein]

It looks like the hinge is gone, but I think it is still stiff at the end of the working limbs.  Also the bow has only taken 5/8th of an inch set on each limb.

[SLIMBOB]

That looks way better.  Still stiff outboard IMO but not by much.  If you are going for circular tiller, then the gap on your straight edge should be the same at any point on the working limb.  This is really over simplifying it.  I tiller mine to bend slightly less at the fades, progressing more as you move toward the tips even on circular tiller.  Point is, yours will show the opposite I believe.  Get it close to the same gap and call it good.  I like it.  Nice job.  Curious what the braced profile and front profile looks like?

[munkinstein]

That looks way better.  Still stiff outboard IMO but not by much.  If you are going for circular tiller, then the gap on your straight edge should be the same at any point on the working limb.  This is really over simplifying it.  I tiller mine to bend slightly less at the fades, progressing more as you move toward the tips even on circular tiller.  Point is, yours will show the opposite I believe.  Get it close to the same gap and call it good.  I like it.  Nice job.  Curious what the braced profile and front profile looks like?

I'll take a few pictures and get them up.  The gap between the straight-edge is pretty much the same the whole way along the working limb, except at the very last 2 inches or so.  I plan on getting the tiller as perfect as I can with this one, to hell with the weight.  I'll pike it when I'm done, and see what happens.  the twist is also a lot better too.  I think with the wider limbs I was taking wood off in an uneven manner.  It's mostly at the ends too, so I'll fix that while adjusting the tiller at the ends.

[DLH]

The gizmo will work.  Not a fan of them for stave bows.  It's a good tool for your bow making tool box, but use with discretion.  Easier IMO to simply run a straight edge (I have a caliper with a 4 inch rule) along the belly of the bow while braced.  Start at the fade and move the straight edge toward the tip.  Flat spots will show little daylight.  Mark these areas with a pencil and scrape.  Hinged areas will show a bigger gap.  These areas need to be marked and left alone.  Scrape on either, sometimes both side of the hinge, until the gap is fairly uniform from fade to just before the tip.  Pearl Drums has discussed this technique in a lot of his posts.  You should see here that the hinge has far more daylight than the surrounding areas.  Blackhawk is exactly right, don't pull it past brace until you have it evened out on both limbs.  Then draw it a few inches on the tree and check it again.  Fix these areas at low brace, brace, 10 inches, 15 inches for example.  Now you won't be damaging the bow by unduly stressing a weak spot at full draw as you won't have a weak spot.

I don't mean to hijack your thread or anything but I have a quick question regarding the gizmo it may have been answered and I overlooked it somewhere. How useful is a gizmo past the long string or full brace? The reason I ask is I would hate to leave a bow pulled back on a tree to use the gizmo. Do most of you guys that use a gizmo use it until a full brace and use you eyes from there?

[munkinstein]

The gizmo will work.  Not a fan of them for stave bows.  It's a good tool for your bow making tool box, but use with discretion.  Easier IMO to simply run a straight edge (I have a caliper with a 4 inch rule) along the belly of the bow while braced.  Start at the fade and move the straight edge toward the tip.  Flat spots will show little daylight.  Mark these areas with a pencil and scrape.  Hinged areas will show a bigger gap.  These areas need to be marked and left alone.  Scrape on either, sometimes both side of the hinge, until the gap is fairly uniform from fade to just before the tip.  Pearl Drums has discussed this technique in a lot of his posts.  You should see here that the hinge has far more daylight than the surrounding areas.  Blackhawk is exactly right, don't pull it past brace until you have it evened out on both limbs.  Then draw it a few inches on the tree and check it again.  Fix these areas at low brace, brace, 10 inches, 15 inches for example.  Now you won't be damaging the bow by unduly stressing a weak spot at full draw as you won't have a weak spot.

I don't mean to hijack your thread or anything but I have a quick question regarding the gizmo it may have been answered and I overlooked it somewhere. How useful is a gizmo past the long string or full brace? The reason I ask is I would hate to leave a bow pulled back on a tree to use the gizmo. Do most of you guys that use a gizmo use it until a full brace and use you eyes from there?

I cannot comment on the gizmo, but I followed other advice and used a straight edge and that was really, really, useful in finding the issues with my bow.  I will be making a gizmo for future bows though, I'm sure that it would a useful tool in any bowyer's toolbox.

[Roy]

I use the gizmo till both limbs have an even gap/bend the length of both limbs, maybe to a 15 inch draw length. It only takes 30 seconds to run it up and down both limbs. If holding a stick bow at any draw length for 30 seconds is going to harm it, maybe I should switch to making glass bows. Once both limbs have that even bend/gap, it's almost a sure thing they will stay even the rest of the way. For character bows with lumps and bumps, the gizmo is out. But the gizmo is a great tool and it will tell you where the limbs need wood removed. It's really no different than using a straight edge and marking the flat spots, it just marks them for you.

I like to make BBO bows, pretty much pre tapered cut and dried before they even hit the tree. I string them right up to a 5 inch brace height and use the gizmo to even out the limbs at that 5 inch brace height before even pulling it on the tree. Dean Torges advocates this in his DVD, Hunting the Bamboo Backed Osage. This BBO below was tillered at a 5 inch brace height with the gizmo. I have not worked it down the tree yet as I quit working on it last night when I got it to this point. But as you can see by the 5 inch braced picture, it has a very good start to being a sweet looking/shooting bow.

Anyway munkinstein, your bow looks nice for all the more experience you have. And the more you build, the better you will get. Absorb all the info you can here as there are many knowledgeable guys here willing to share their years of making bows. Just go slow and easy, looking for that nice even arc in the limbs while avoiding those nasty hinges. Once you hinge a bow limb, the damage has already been done and all you can do from there is try to even out the limbs and settle for a lighter weight bow. But the bright side is, you can always give the bow to a kid and put a smile on his or her face:)

[SLIMBOB]

DLH  I own 4 or 5 gizmos.  Some guys swear by them, so I have no problem with them, I just prefer a different method.  If you have a lumpy bumpy stave you gotta be careful or you will take wood off in the wrong places.  They also make your tiller circular which is, in my opinion rarely proper.  Having said that, it's a tool.  Used with common sense it's a good tool.  Whether the straight edge or the gizmo, I only use it on a bow drawn to about 15 16 inches or so on the tree.  I'm freakish about keeping a bow at full draw or even close to full draw for any more than a few seconds at most.  If I get the tiller good at brace, it will be close at 10 inches.  If I fix it at 10 inches it will be close at 13 inches.  Touch it up at 13 it will be real close at 15-16 inches.  Get it as close as I can at 15-16 inches and the rest is drawn by hand.  Others may do this completely different than I described.  Some guys get their bows very close to right at floor tiller, and by the time they string it it's real close.  I get one bending evenly at floor tiller, but I get a string on one as soon as I'm able to muscle it on.  2" brace or so.  My tillering really starts right there.  Not saying it's the only way, or even the best way, just the way I do it.

[DLH]

Thanks Slimbob and roy I was wondering about how long a bow could be pulled back that clears it up for me especially if you guys stop using a gizmo around 15-16 inches. So is a straight edge out on a character bow too I assume it is?

[Roy]

I don't hold a bow at any draw length down the tree any longer than needed. But I don't push the panic button if it's held for 30 or 40 seconds either. Heck we work them down the tree hundreds of times anyway. And sometimes when hunting we might have to hold for 20 or 30 seconds to get off a shot. It doesn't take long from the start to get an even bend in the limbs. And once you achieve that even bend, it normally will hold that bend the rest of the way, normally:) At least an even bend is a great start. You basically want to achieve a good even bend from the get go. On a character bow it's mostly an eyeball game.

[SLIMBOB]

I use a straight edge on character bows.  You just have to look at the limb and understand that some spots will be flatter than the areas around it, and that it should be that way.  Then just move on up the limb with it.  Becomes much more about the whole limb than 4 inch sections of a limb on character bows.

Roy's bows are always sweetness.

[DLH]

Thanks guys I think I am done asking questions for now. You have been a great help and yes Roy's bows are awesome just like the one he posted above.