whats the weight gain per inc of piking?

[beartail]

I know piking is kind of like cheating and sometimes you have to adjust the tiller and you loose those extra pounds anyway but isn't it usually about 5# per inch of reduction? its been a while since I have piked a bow.

[Del the cat]

Dunno, but the easy way to see is to bind the string to the limb an inch or so down and test it...
It lets you try without chopping the bow.
I don't think you can gain much, maybe 5# or so, but it only works with perfect tiller and a bow that isn't going to end up overstressed by being shortened.
I often make a bow (English longbows) an inch too long on each limb just to give a bit of leeway.
Del

[George Tsoukalas]

What Del said.
One inch from both ends will get you around 5#, probably more set and more stress depending on the tiller and whether the present length is more than the minimum.

For me, he minimum is double your draw and add 10-20% depending on the wood. Osage will take  to be shorter at 10% min. and white woods closer to 20%. Take into account the condition of the stave such as if it is knotted.

Again that's my minimum.

Jawge

[sleek]

0#. Because you make the fades and inner limbs more stressed by shortening the lever of the outer limb. You must retiller after piking and all weight gains are lost. Only advantage is on a whip tillered bow.

[huisme]

Around 5# most of the time. I usually try to tiller my limbs so the same tiller with an inch off the end isn't a bad thing. It's basically like pulling the pre-piked bow until the point an inch down from the tips reaches the same position as the tips during the short draw. If your bow can take that you're good to go.

[Eric Krewson]

5# per limb and sometimes a little more. I have piked a bunch of lower limbs that got weak over time. I never saw the reduced performance that Mr Sleek mentioned or had to do much retillering except to drop the piked limb a pound or two to get the timing back on the limbs.

[sleek]

I once built a very long hickory bow of about 50#@28. I cut lower nocks to bring the weight up if I wanted to shoot a higher draw weight bow, or could use the higher tip nocos to shoot lower draw weight. The pike was a 4" difference.  When strng on the upper nocks the tiller was fine. When strung on the lower pike nocks the fades and inner limb were over stressed and the outter third was stiff.

Changing your bow length will change your tiller. Will it matter?  That depends on to many variables.  But you will drop weight if you retiller to bring it back around. If you do that there are no poundage gains.  This has been my experience.  I have noticed it on every bow I have piked. You could always add heat to the inner limbs to stiffen them to avoid weight loss of tiller removal.

[bowmo]

About 2.5 pounds per inch on normal length bows. So an inch or so off each limb with raise it around 5 pounds.

[huisme]

I've never had that problem. I've had to re-tiller but always when I'd overlooked something and it became more apparent in the shortened bow, it usually didn't take all five pounds to scrape it out. A lot of the time I haven't even re-tillered, the wood was bending proportionally through the whole limb so the limb was ready to be bent farther for any given draw.

Besides mollegabets none of my bows could survive having two sets of nocks four inches apart, at four inches I'm still squeezing out the slightest shadow of bend as according to the width of the material.

[bradsmith2010]

piking does work, I am sure there are times it does not,,on a bow that is overbuilt it can help improve performance as well,, just depends on the bow for sure,,but is a good option for some instances 

[Pappy]

What Eric said is my experience on the subject. I use to do it a lot, not so much anymore, guess I have gotten a little better and hit weight most of the time. and by the way it's not cheating in my opinion you do what needs to be done to come out with the bow you want.
   Pappy