[Tillering Finished!!!] Well, here goes nothing! (First build)

[hobbyaccumulator]

No harm done at all

Okay so round everything at least a bit, and round the belly according to the guide! Got it! First i'm gonna start on my tillering setup because i am excited to get the pulley system working

[loon]

Hopefully I didn't do much harm by spreading half-truths.

Haha same.

John Riggs actually likes red oak, and uses it all the time, so I'll check his book...

... aaaand he says a flat belly is best "for any wood besides yew" (flat except you'd round off the sharp edges). I think he just means tension-strong woods. I am pretty sure red oak is tension strong.

I think you should just round the edges of the back a little, making the back slightly narrower, and the edges of the belly just enough to make them not sharp. But you should wait for someone more experienced to confirm.

[hobbyaccumulator]

Hey all,

So just completed building my tillering setup, i still need to add inch marks to it, but here are some pics.

Essentially its just a 2x4 that i secured to a pillar which supports my upper deck with paracord. Then i added two  blocks of 2x4 that are offset a little creating the saddle for the bow and a lip so it doesn't slip off.

At the bottom at attached a 2x4 perpendicular and then added a one of those hooks you use to mount bikes in your garage for the pulley to go on. Then i used some more paracord for the rope that goes through the pulley to the scale which will hook onto the bow string.

I got the scale on amazon for 9 bucks and the pulley at Ace, but the wood, hooks, and screws i already had lying around. So all in all it only took an hour and half and not too much money.

Right now the whole rig moves side to side a little but when my housemate comes home i'll have him secure the big 2x4 to the pillar using a really strong knot. He is an eagle scout.

Now i can get back to making the bow, i still haven't glued on the riser or added nocks, first i will round out and sharp parts.

EDIT: Just realized i may have screwed up big time, i wasn't thinking about the initial placement of the bow on the tree and now that i'm looking at it the middle block that actually holds the bow is kind of long which would be the bow would need to bend down past that just to begin tillering. Meaning the smallest draw i can measure  is the length of that middle block....

I was worried that if the block was too small i wouldn't be able to put the lip to secure the bow on, but now i'm worried that if i attempt to tiller starting at that length (about 6 inches) i might break the bow.

[hobbyaccumulator]

Fearing the worst i just went ahead and reduced the saddle height to about 1 or 1.5 inches.

Pic of new saddle

Unfortunately I might have to go without a lip or ind a much smaller piece of wood to screw in.

[loon]

I was worried that if the block was too small i wouldn't be able to put the lip to secure the bow on, but now i'm worried that if i attempt to tiller starting at that length (about 6 inches) i might break the bow.

Might want to do some tillering with a very long string then... the problem is it stresses the bow differently.

Here's the string, 12 strand B55. Maybe I'll tie an additional section in case you end up using that tree as is... I've salvaged bowstrings since my spools are 140 miles away.

[hobbyaccumulator]

@loon wow! thank you so much! i'm so excited!

I just took more wood off and i wasn't paying attention, now my tips are 1/4 inch thick instead of 3/8 like Sam's guide tells me to. I'm nervous that i messed everything up and the bow is not salvage-able. But i am hoping that it's still workable into a bow of decent strength

I'm going to proceed with gluing on the riser tonight, and shape the riser hopefully tomorrow. If i don't get around to shaping the riser tomorrow then it's going to have to wait a week because im travelling middle of this week until next.

I pray i didn't mess up too much. I did some psuedo-floor tillering (just bending the limbs against the ground) and they definitely bend a lot more than they did before, but i'd say it's only about 2 inches of flex at the tip.

The reason i kept taking off wood was because i was worried that it was too stiff to start tillering with.

[DC]

Looks pretty good but a few suggestions. First I would put a lip on the saddle, you don't need much but you don't want the bow popping off the front. I wouldn't trust that bottom hook, a beefy screw eye into the back 2x4 would be better. Make it so you're pulling sideways on it. If you put a block(pulley) on the scale you can get a 2-1 advantage. Makes it way easier to pull.

[hobbyaccumulator]

@DC what do you mean put a pulley on the scale to get 2:1?

I just re-measured and the tips of the bow are 5/16" thick, which is 1/16" thinner than Sam Harper's guide (3/8" thickness at tip). In addition to this my side taper starts at the riser instead of 15" from the tip like Sam's making my taper have even less wood than his.

I hope this doesn't mess up my bow too badly. I'd really love to get it to 45-50lbs draw weight, but if i can't i'd just be happy having a bow that works for target practice.

[loon]

@DC what do you mean put a pulley on the scale to get 2:1?

Something like this, I imagine he meant one more pulley since you already have one at the base (block and tackle??). You'd end up having to pull twice as much to get the same draw length, but it'll be twice as easy.

Looks like the same scale I have, which I've tested up to 60#





edit:

Like Loon's picture but upside down...

so more like this, yeah that's way better

[hobbyaccumulator]

@loon thanks for the image, i understand now; brings me back to my physics undergrad :p

Some pics of the bow now, with riser glued on

I really like how it's going along right now, it looks (at least aesthetically) very good and hopefully that extra 1/16 of wood taken off the thickness doesn't mess up the end weight too much, but i am fearful that that combined with the extra side taper all the way to the riser is going to have a large effect on the end weight. I have no intuition for this though since it's my first time.

[DC]

Like Loon's picture but upside down. Two single blocks, tie the line by the bottom block, up through the top, down though the bottom block and to your hand.

[hobbyaccumulator]

I'll see what I can, do but then I'll need another pulley which I don't have at the moment. Either way it's an easy addition later on.

I'll also have to find a small piece of wood for the lip but I think I might have something laying around the garage.

Can anyone comment on the thickness issue? Is 5/16 going to be too thin or is it something I won't know until I tiller? Or am I freaking it way too much over this?

[loon]

since halving the thickness supposedly makes the draw weight 1/8, this 1/16 out of 6/16 would make it... ??!?!? is this exponential

Note that pyramid bows (what you're making since you have straight taper from the handle fades to the tips) are supposed to have pretty even thickness throughout.. and even bend

[DC]

5/16" is pretty thin. How wide is it at the tips? Is it still 74" long? I've never made a red oak bow so I'm not sure how short it can be but there may be some wiggle room there. Keep going but don't take any wood off the last foot or so until you see how it's going to bend.

[hobbyaccumulator]

It's 72 inches long, and a half inch wide at the tip.

I haven't put knocks in yet so is it possible to save it by putting the nocks lower down than I was planning, making the nick regions thicker than they were going to be?