Tillering a spliced ELB

[DC]

Does leaning a little toward elliptical tillering take any strain off the splice? I'm not going to reduce the thickness of the handle/splice area at all. I'm trying a 2.25" 3 fingered finger joint and I'm a little chicken

[Pat B]

DC, I think an elliptical tiller with a slightly stiff handle would be good. I also think I'd make a longer splice and wrap the handle with strong cordage like hemp.

[DC]

It's too late to make a longer splice

[bradsmith2010]

DC,,, if you are nervous make it a little lighter,, whats a 3 finger look like,,

[DC]

I really hate to show you this but "Warts and all" I guess. I originally spliced this with some deflex but it was coming out too light so I cut it in half and re-spliced it straight. When I was redoing the splice I thought I had it lined up so the fingers would mesh but I missed by a bit. The joint fit nicely though so I thought I would just forge ahead. After all, the glue is stronger than the wood, right, right. So what you're seeing is a joint within a joint or maybe a jointed joint This joint has 13.5" of glue line(not counting the screw-up) compared to 9 or 10 with a regular 3.5" "Z" splice. I've tillered it out to 40#@25". If this joint survives then a properly done one will be better. If I wrap it will that make it less likely to break or just keep the splinters from going into my hand. I would rather not strengthen it because then I'm not fully testing the splice but keeping the splinters out of my hand sounds like a good idea. The dark slices in the splice are just little pieces of bark.

[bradsmith2010]

well,, I think it will hold at 40 but I am spit balling,, I think 30 would be safer,, but if it was me I would try 40 just to see if the short splice is gonna work on other bows,,

[DC]

I have finished a 40# Plum RD with the same splice and it seems to be holding. I'll post it shortly. Upstate uses the same splice and likes it (I stole it from him ). I'm pretty confident it will work and I thought this one would be the big test. Then I started to chicken out so I asked you guys.

[bradsmith2010]

I saw that one Upstate did too,,

[upstatenybowyer]

I stole it from Marc St. Louis  .

Maybe I'm just over-confident about that splice, but I'd bet the family jewels that baby would hold at 60#. Well maybe not the FJ, but definitely a toe. 

I've used that splice to make a slightly bendy handle shorty that pulled 50# and it was the limbs that failed. The splice was fine.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Glue a few pieces of scrap together that same way and just try to break it, bet you cant

[ohma2]

Glue a few pieces of scrap together that same way and just try to break it, bet you cant

       x2

[Del the cat]

I did a 40# one about a week ago, you can follow the whole build on my blog including some tillering problems and it's final performance distance wise. Links to some video of it on the tiller in the blog too
https://bowyersdiary.blogspot.com/2018/12/40-yew-elb-virtually-finished.html
Del