Always like the first time

[Badger]

     Working on a bow this morning, I have 2" to go to get to 28". I feel like a kid building my first bow. I call this the death zone. I just can't decide where to remove wood, everyplace looks perfect. I spent two hours getting the last 2'. This is what I love about buildng bows, what else can you do that you get the same thrill out of no matter how many times you do it?

[Pat B]

I can only think of one or two...     

[PEARL DRUMS]

I get that way to, Steve. Ill have the tiller balanced and looking great, but 15-20# too heavy. Its sooo tempting to leave it be, but I know I cant draw it. So I get apprehensive about removing more wood.

[Badger]

I get that way to, Steve. Ill have the tiller balanced and looking great, but 15-20# too heavy. Its sooo tempting to leave it be, but I know I cant draw it. So I get apprehensive about removing more wood.

  I am always tempted to remove a little more wood close to the fades because it reacts quicker and I can finish up. I really have to force myself to avoid doing that.

[JonW]

I get that way to, Steve. Ill have the tiller balanced and looking great, but 15-20# too heavy. Its sooo tempting to leave it be, but I know I cant draw it. So I get apprehensive about removing more wood.

This is my love/hate relationship of building bows for others.

[bradsmith2010]

I am not a patient person, so that last two inches is a challenge to me,, lightly scrape and sand the whole thing and hope the bow gods are with me,, sometimes it takes me days to get it,, cause I get tired of patiently sanding,,

[hoosierf]

I find that a rasp or a few scrapes on the fades helps get over the hump since a little movement there is magnified many times over at the tips.

[BowEd]

Yes it's fun getting to that point but it's gotta be done.

[RandyN]

I usually trick myself into not hurrying the last couple inches. I place pencil marks across the full length of each limb and then remove them with a scraper or by sanding. I can see the progress by removing the lines with very little change to tiller and draw weight. You might say I sneak the final 2 inches of draw length out of the bow. And hope I hit the draw weight I want. Loads of fun.

[upstatenybowyer]

I am not a patient person, so that last two inches is a challenge to me,, lightly scrape and sand the whole thing and hope the bow gods are with me,, sometimes it takes me days to get it,, cause I get tired of patiently sanding,,

+1 

[Selfbowman]

Yes that final ,final is not so much a challenge as the fact that it bends so even but just to heavy. If they hit between 40- 50 and not a custom I'm done. Arvin

[DuBois]

I gotta say, I'm still a bit apprehensive around the entire tillering process cause I know I can destroy a lot of good work in planning and ruin a piece of wood real quick. It's fun though and I do feel like I am just a new comer to learning it with different profiles and all.

I find that a rasp or a few scrapes on the fades helps get over the hump since a little movement there is magnified many times over at the tips.

One thing I have messed up on was getting a bow too close to weight and realizing I still had rasp tool marks to get down to and before long I was way beyond help. Probably sounds simple to many of  you but cleaning up all the tool marks off the edges and going to a scraper a little earlier in the process has been real helpful and only took me a dozen or more bow fails to figure it out 

[Badger]

  This bow I was working on this morning was the fifth in a series of Elbs I have been building. I was going for zero set and I made it. The other 4 came out good but had just a whisper of set. I actually went 1" over just for security.

[mikekeswick]

I gotta say, I'm still a bit apprehensive around the entire tillering process cause I know I can destroy a lot of good work in planning and ruin a piece of wood real quick. It's fun though and I do feel like I am just a new comer to learning it with different profiles and all.

I find that a rasp or a few scrapes on the fades helps get over the hump since a little movement there is magnified many times over at the tips.

One thing I have messed up on was getting a bow too close to weight and realizing I still had rasp tool marks to get down to and before long I was way beyond help. Probably sounds simple to many of  you but cleaning up all the tool marks off the edges and going to a scraper a little earlier in the process has been real helpful and only took me a dozen or more bow fails to figure it out 

Get some bastard files and some second cut files.

[leonwood]

Oh that feeling it's a part of the process that makes us bowyer geeks do it over and over again. Feels a bit like learning a difficult trick on a skateboard and after that you just do that trick all the time ( even after 30 years, still do some I learned when I was 14 )