Tricky tiller

[Ryan C]

Stave is 2 years old I'm working in my basement which is always 50-60 relative humidity. The checks started about 15 minutes into the heating.

[Dances with squirrels]

How long has the bark and sapwood been removed? How long has it been reduced in size? Has it been in the basement the entire time? Do you keep the heat gun moving or hold it in one place for a while? Maybe your gun is a lot hotter than mine?

[Ryan C]

I got the stave from pine hollow. The bark ands sapwood was removed when I got it. I keep my gun moving and it goes up to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit

[Ryan C]

looks a little better now. I'll give it a week or so to rehydrate.

[Dances with squirrels]

Looks good, but ya took all the fun out of it. 

[Pappy]

I most times take the kinks out if I can but if not I watch the top of the limb to see that it is moving especially if it has reflex and try and keep the tapper even, if you just watch the belly it will look flat on reflexed areas and hinged on deflexed areas. I also flip it regularly and look at it from both sides, sometimes that will give you a better idea on what it is really doing. real easy to get fooled when they have kinks/dips and dives in them. Looks better now that you have straightened it. 
 Pappy

[George Tsoukalas]

I am thinking of a photo I've seen.

It is a photo of a bow made by Chet Stevenson where both limbs literally looked like waves coming into the seashore. The bow was a beautifully tillered selfbow...a beautiful character bow.

I'm so glad he left the whoopty do's in.

Kinks should bend just as much as the rest of the limb.

Assessing the tiller of a character bow is difficult because the pleasing tiller picture we like to see is not always the best tiller for the bow.

Looking at the first picture my initial impression, Ryan, was that the right limbs needs to bend more mid limb on. Often with character bows one has to look at both sides of the draw.

Jawge