Author Topic: Not dropping weight??  (Read 2100 times)

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Offline Lumberman

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Not dropping weight??
« on: June 11, 2016, 11:22:38 am »
So I have a simple little walnut bow I am working on, and it seems to have stopped losing weight. I got the tiller pleasing around 18" at 35-38#, worked my way up to 42ish at 24". I scraped both sides  10 times (which is relative to amount I normally take off to drop a few pounds), exercised it carefully 20-30 times, no weight loss.. Knowing I still had ample space and the tiller being good I repeated the process. Again there is no poundage loss  at 24". Exercised again with no difference. I have not had this happen before so I am hesitant to take any more off, even though I would have guessed that four more removals from 24" would have been necessary for me. Its a hot humid one here idk if that could be affecting things or if I am just being paranoid about taking more off. I decided to stop and wait till tomorrow to come back to it. Thought I'd ask if this was common or not

Offline wizardgoat

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Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2016, 11:36:43 am »
If the bow is getting very flat you could narrow it a bit.
Just keep going, sometimes it takes a few more scrapes to see a weight change

Offline Josh B

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Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2016, 11:59:08 am »
If your scraping the sides, you'll want to remember that it roughly takes 8 scrapes off the width to equal 1 scrape off the belly.  So scraping the sides is going to require a lot of material removal to drop any significant weight.  Josh

Offline Badger

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Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2016, 12:15:50 pm »
   Did you mean you scraped top and bottom limbs or scraped the sides of the bow. 10 scrapes won't usually take off a few pounds, more like maybe 1/4 pound or less. I guess it depends how much wood your scraper removes. If you keep scraping the belly it will drop weight, maybe not as fast as you like but it often takes a lot of scraping to get final weight. I am a pretty fast scraper and I usually spend about an hour or so scraping off the last 10# or so.

Offline Lumberman

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Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2016, 12:56:36 pm »
When I said sides I meant both top and bottom limbs on the belly, alright thanks. I tend to rush ahead and make mistakes that way. I'll just keep at it

Offline Del the cat

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    • Derek Hutchison Native Wood Self Bows
Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2016, 02:10:52 pm »
That's only ever happened to me once...
Yew ELB... about 55# at 25" trying to get to 55# at 28".
took wood off no change in draw length at 55#
Took wood off, no change ???
Took wood off no change :o
Took wood off, finally the draw weight comes back a bit more... :)
Then it explodes >:(
Del
Health warning, these posts may contain traces of nut.

Offline Joec123able

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Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2016, 02:44:54 pm »
I say just go slow and excercise the limbs when you take wood off. It's happened to me where it won't loose any weight and I keep taking wood off then suddenly it's ends up under weight lol.
I like osage

Offline Badger

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Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #7 on: June 11, 2016, 03:03:08 pm »
  The way I do it and I think a lot of others is instead of scraping the entire limb just keep going for perfect tiller and scraping the stiff areas even if they are just very minor corrections. Before you know it you will be done.

Offline DC

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Re: Not dropping weight??
« Reply #8 on: June 11, 2016, 03:24:55 pm »
Just fight the temptation to "just take a couple of extra strokes this time". :D :D