Golden Rule for Set?

[cool_98_555]

Hi guys,

Just finished another osage bow.  I have shot it over 100 times, and it has around 2.25" of set.  Is this acceptable?  Should I just finish it and call it a bow?  I was considering tempering the belly with some reflex but i'm not sure.  The other side of me is telling me "Just leave it alone.  Shoots great...just leave well-enough alone."  But i'm tempted to temper the belly to get a bit more performance out of it.  Is there some golden rule of some kind regarding set?  Like,...less than a certain amount is good?  Do any of you guys have osage bows with set comparable to mine and still enjoy shooting them?

[Badger]

  It just a personal preference of mine but I feel more than 1" of set is not acceptable. If I had about 3' reflex and then finished at 1 1/2" I would be ok with it but the less the better. Lots of techniques you can learn to avoid set. If you were using these techniques you would have been able to respond to the set long before it hit 2 1/2".

[Bryce]

Golden rule: never pull more than a couple pounds more than the desired draw weight.

Acceptable amount of set for me is determined by what species to wood is like I know hickory and oak will take more set than most woods.
I rarely have bows that take more than 1.5” of set/spring follow. For yew and Osage more than an inch of set means I did something wrong in my book. Whether it’s design or tillering errors.

[bushboy]

Can you post pics?front profile,unbrace,brace and full draw will tell the tale.

[Badger]

  Moisture level, design, tiller, all three have to be right.

[Del the cat]

What I do is put it belly down on a flat surface... if you can get 1 finger between floor and grip that's fine ... 2 fingers, well ok, acceptable. 3 fingers too much  .
Mind having said that some of my fave bows are 3 fingers... a bit of  set can give you a smooooooth shooter.
It's really up to you.
Del

[cool_98_555]

Del I tried your finger method and when I put the belly facing the wall and I don't put any pressure on it, I can get one finger between the handle and the wall.  I was getting 2.25" by putting the back against the wall and measuring from the wall to the tip of the bow.  Am I measuring it wrong?  With your method it would seem as though the set is well within acceptable...

[George Tsoukalas]

Just enjoy your bow. There's not a lot you can do now.
Make sure it is dry, that the design fits the stave and that the stave is nit strained during tillering.
Jawge

[Del the cat]

Del I tried your finger method and when I put the belly facing the wall and I don't put any pressure on it, I can get one finger between the handle and the wall.  I was getting 2.25" by putting the back against the wall and measuring from the wall to the tip of the bow.  Am I measuring it wrong?  With your method it would seem as though the set is well within acceptable...

There is no "wrong"
... but, yeah that's the way I do it so it sounds fine to me.
You are the only one who knows what the stave was like when you started. Some people have bows that are ramrod straight... but maybe they started with 3" of reflex!
Chillax 
Sel

[Bryce]

What I do is put it belly down on a flat surface... if you can get 1 finger between floor and grip that's fine ... 2 fingers, well ok, acceptable. 3 fingers too much  .
Mind having said that some of my fave bows are 3 fingers... a bit of  set can give you a smooooooth shooter.
It's really up to you.
Del

Same here. Had 1” or so of deflex and ended up at 2” and the release was nice and soft. Which definitely made it nice to shoot.
Saxon Pope states that his bows that slightly followed the string where softer, and the better shooters.

[bradsmith2010]

I have osage bow I elk hunt with , has nearly 3 inches of set,, it shoots really well, it is 20 years old,, I not gonna mess with it,, I like my bows to have inch or less, but a bow with a little set can still shoot really well,,the bow is a bit on the heavy side,, not so fast for its draw,, but because it is a bit heavy has nice cast,,,a lighter bow could out shooot it,, but its an old friend and I love it,,

[PaulN/KS]

The only "rule" I can think of is "Set Happens"... 

[Stick Bender]

A lot of guys that build Howard Hill style bows & build them purposely to have a little set for softer shooters,if it was me & if the bow shoots well and had decent cast I wouldn't worry about it and try to make a better one next time , Steve made a good point about dry wood ,osage amazes me how long it holds on to moisture ,I have staves inside on the wall that have been off the stump for three years & some are still reflexing more each year.

[Nasr]

before you even pull the bow to desired weight make sure the limbs are bending even that has caused a lot of set when i used to do otherwise. Just take it slow. and always check set throughout the tillering process if you see that there is some set taking place ask your self is that reasonable given the draw length it is currently in. If not you know that you are doing something wrong. And after all that you realize you aren't able to stop set then maybe its a design issue or a moisture problem. I personally always make my bows wider then they need to be then thinner them out at the end to make them lighter.   

[Badger]

       I didn't mean to come off as harsh about the set, the only reason I was so direct about it was because the question was about set. Tillering the bow out is my favorite part of bow making. I don't look at it as work because it is much more like a very intense strategy game. I have radically altered a lot of my techniques in the last few years just based on methods of addressing set.

   Floor tillering, I used to get my bow pretty close to the weight I was looking for and then either brace it or put it on the long string just to check it out before I braced it. Now when I floor tiller a bow I want them as even as possible but every part of the limb is still too strong. As long as no part of the limb is at target weight I can't hurt the bow by pulling it to full target weight every time I draw the bow on the long string even if they are way out of tiller. I don't reduce weight anymore I just work on the tiller shape, weight reduction is simply a byproduct of that.

   The long string will read just about the same as the bow would read as if it were braced so I always know where I am at as far as getting close to target weight. Every time I remove wood I recheck the bows draw weight at the last place I had it before wood removal. I then take it down to its new draw length always pulling full target draw weight. I then go back and see if it is still reading the same at the old mark. If it dropped any weight it is taking set, if the tiller is nice and even and I have no where else to remove wood I simply lower my target draw weight and try to plan the next bow out a little better. Several other little things I have added in their as well. It adds a new dimension to bow making that for me makes it a lot more enjoyable and a lot less tedious.