Feathering on the belly - which way is which

[Badger]

I'll ask again, what is feathering?

   It just means tapering the limbs so as to bring your ring lines to a feather edge as they run out.

[DC]

Feathering is the shape of the wood grain on the belly. Assuming a perfect(doesn't exist) piece of wood you could tiller by making the shape of the feathers(also called flames) change gradually and evenly down the limb.

[OTDEAN]

I never use osage as I live in the UK.  I do use Elm, Ash, Oak, Rowan, Hazel and Elder mostly for my flat bows, have done for years.  Took a break for over a year and was getting a bit rusty that is why I asked the question.  With the woods I use, normally I can get a half decent floor tiller by roughly following the flames of the rings.  Normally it gives a good starting thickness taper.  Yes sometimes one side of the limb ends up thicker but if I slowly work with a file I can correct the thickness of the sides as I go because I work at glacial speed.  I find it quite easy to stagger the rings to make a pleasing thickness taper? 

To be honest I normally just stick the bow then on the tillering tree just to get my limbs to balance after floor tiller and normally my tiller does not take a lot of work as the floor tillering with the feathering has done the trick.  It works for me but its only part of my skills to getting near a finished bow.  The only I have to be careful is paying close attention to any knots which have their own way of messing with the growth rings on the belly.  That is something that comes with experience and being able to read the run of the rings and taper accordingly.

I often find after adjusting the sides of my bows just using my finger calipers I hardly ever get limb twist anyhow.  I can imagine the use of the rings like this does not work with all types of wood.  I always free hand my bows and never use anything but a piece of string, axe, rasp and file so I can not really speak for how accurate my tillering is, the bows shoot and dont break so something must be right. 

Thanks for the advice   

[FilipT]

Are belly pictures from my bow from page before showing desired effect of feathering? I mean, do people who try it go for something similar as on pictures?

[OTDEAN]

Yeah the belly picture really confused the heck out of me.  I first thought hmm yes that is the middle of the bow with the feathering away from centre but you said not.  But yes that is roughly how my bellys look but not with such big pointy flame jobbies pointing towards the nocks.  I normally start off with say 1/2" thickness all the way down the limbs and then start to feather the rings while always checking the bend on the floor tiller.  What type of wood is it?

[DC]

The third picture is showing about what it should look like, all the flames pointing the same way, but the other pictures show what it does end up like. It's not a good way of doing it.

[OTDEAN]

Yes if you relied on that alone you would struggle but like anything there are lots of ways to skin a cat.  I do find that when I use my fingers to do my thickness tapers I can normally tell when one ring begins and one ends because I can feel the thickness change in my fingers as I run them up and down the limbs and sure as I look when I feel the taper changing there is the new growth ring.  If that makes sense?

[FilipT]

Shape of rings on my bow was the result of tillering. I am now aware that deliberately producing them like that would be hard to do. You can notice on some places that they do not taper but go for almost parallel and long. That is because I left there more wood on purpose because of potential hinges that started to develop. If I went for gradual thickness taper from center to tips, I would be left with two hinges, one on upper and one on lower limb.

That is probably the evidence why feathering can ruin your bow.