Narrowing a bow

[DC]

If I'm tillering and the tiller is nice and even but it could stand to lose some width would I remove ,say, 1/16" from the entire length of the bow or should it be a tapered removal, say, 1/16" at the tips increasing to 1/8" at the fades.

[Pat B]

I just take a little off each side until I get the width I want then check tiller and adjust if necessary.   
 This bow building stuff ain't brain surgery. 

[George Tsoukalas]

If the tiller is good and the save is responding to belly wood removal, why do you want to narrow it?
How wide is it?
What wood are you using?
Jawge

[DC]

It's yew and the heartwood is getting thin. Well it's about half sap and half heart. It's an appearance thing more than anything with this one. I had about ten pounds to go and thought I could keep the half and half look if I went a little narrower. It's done now, looks OK. I just came in from shooting it. Shoots in the 165-167fps range with 10gpp arrows. It's a touch heavy for me so I may take a bit more off the sides. Hopefully the lighter limbs will make up for the lost poundage.

[BowEd]

DC.....You may know this but removing material from the side reduces poundage approximately 1/8 of what belly tillering does.So it's a matter of knowing your wood species and paying attention to mass weight providing the wood is dry while tillering.Starting out wide enough is the key to it.On unfamiliar wood I'll lots of times put my thickness taper on an overly wide top view profiled bow first and get proper floor tiller then reduce it width wise to within a couple of ounces or so of projected mass weight.
10 pounds of draw weight is a fair amount to reduce width wise at your stage now.If done evenly on both sides to both limbs your tiller should not be changed.Forget about the last six inches to tip though.Your doing the right thing there.Shoot your bow in real good it might lose a pound or two that way too yet.
Missing info here knowing your width/thickness/draw length you are at there to give any real useful advice.Pat's right it's really not that tough to accomplish.

[crooketarrow]

 It's not good to remove wood from the sides after tilling.

  Removing wood from sides causes weight loss. If you take off 16 th inch after  tilling you can or will make your bow at lease 5 to 7 pounds lighter.

  If you have your bow a bit heavy you'll be OK. But that's quessing. I don't guess building bows
  Tiller like this, set up with a scale. Have the bows limbs cut to form. You have a target weight and draw length. From the time you start to tiller never go past your target weight as you tiller. Tiller clear through to your draw length.

  By never going past your target weight as you tiller. As you tiller to your draw length you'll have your target weight. Works the same on every bow no matter what the bow weight you need or how long a draw length you have.

  GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR BOW

[BowEd]

That's a given here crooked arrow I expects he knows and reducing from the sides does not reduce draw weight like from the belly at all.

[BowEd]

It all depends on the wood.Compression strong type yew wood should be able to handle it.It handles D section designed bellys well.Side tillering is a way to reduce mass weight mostly without reducing poundage too much.Best to take your time with your bow there.

[George Tsoukalas]

DC, I am glad it is working out for you. I often begin to narrow a stave when belly removal makes it too thin and it stops responding. Jawge

[DC]

Thank for the thoughts. I have made yew bows of this weight quite a bit narrower than this one.  I took a bit over 1/16" off the length and a a few more scrapes off the belly. It's 68NTN and 1 1/4" wide at the fades pulling about 45@28. It's got a few knots so I didn't want to go too narrow but I'm pretty confident this is OK.

[bow101]

I would not narrow the fades but thats just me.
Maybe some day I'll get this tillering thing right.      Just finished another laminate and it was about 42# before shooting it in.  Tiller looked really good at about 23" After 120 shots the bow now sits at about 38#.  I missed my weight by 4# so be it.   Having said that after 4 years of doing this Frustration is mounting.... I may throw in the towel or at least quit for a while.

[bubby]

There is an old rule of thumb to leave the bow about 5# heavy for shooting it in

[Springbuck]

DC, I do it just like I remove thickness.  Try to plan for it, but when you need to remove some, I do it in stages, working around grain on the sides, and checking here and there to maintain tiller.