? Proper procedure for a good floor tiller

[Fred Arnold]

I wanted to take the time to thanks all of you for your input. It looks as though my approach was somewhat correct but I had never seen a good explanation of how it should be done and had been second guessing myself.

Also learned a few other techniques that I will add to what I've currently been using. I especially like the idea of floor testing other bows in the proper weight range to get the proper feel before going to the tree and limiting the use of the long string as I've never felt it told me much of anything other than whether the limbs were bending evenly. bending   

[Pappy]

I floor tiller just to get the limbs bending even and about the same in weight, then long string[string just long enough to fit] on a tiller stick out to about brace,then brace and go to the tree. I have ran into to many problems over the years when I get them to close to drawfloor tillering, before really looking them over,problems that could have been taken care of early but can't later on without missing weight. Little slower the way I do it but I rarely miss weight and I figured out long ago it ant a road race.  Lots of ways to skin a cat,try different ways and see what works for you,if tiller turns out nice and you are making weight most of the time then that's a good thing,if not you may want to adjust the way you are doing it. No real right or wrong way on a lot of this stuff.
   Pappy

[George Tsoukalas]

I floor tiller to about 3 inches and then long string tiller  to around 10 inches of string movement...not tip movement ...string movement...all the while looking for a good bend and 5# over target weight (or so) which reduces the stave sufficiently to be strung and then ...I string it. It is a process with a plan...I like plans. I almost never use...so pardon me...I got  up early today. More on my site. Jawge
http://georgeandjoni.home.comcast.net/~georgeandjoni/index.html