A continuing problem

[sleek]

If I'm going to pike and correct the tiller on this is there a preferred order. Would it be better to correct the tiller first and then pike it or vice versa?

Honestly, I dont think picking will help. If you want to improve the bow, use heat to reduce the reflex. The wood has already been damaged by overly compressing it. The heat may help with more heat treatment,  but you need to reduce the reflex to have any gains. Or, leave it as a short draw bow. You could also glue on a new belly....

[DC]

It definitely could be a lost cause and a new belly crossed my mind. I'll have to see if I end up with some thin strips of Plum.  I did tie the string to the bow to see how much the weight went up and I was surprised. I'll get some numbers here in a bit. 

[DC]

Not as dramatic as I thought. I just pulled it to 22" to maybe save what's left.
At 22" it's 23.5#
Piked it 3" off each end and its 27#
   "    "  4"                             30#
   "    "  5"                             33#
5" of each end leaves me with a 58" bow that might pull 40# at 26". I think I'll put it in the COS until I see if I can find some Plum lams. COS is getting kind of full

[SLIMBOB]

Hate when that happens. Especially on something like plum.

[DC]

Pulled this out of the COS cause I couldn't stand to see it there. I couldn't come up with some Plum to use for a new belly so I used Yew. I tillered the Plum portion down to about 25#@28" then glued on a 1/4" strip on edge grained Yew. I was leary of putting much reflex in because I think that's what caused my troubles to start with so I just glued it up as it wanted to be. In the grand scheme of things I should have glued in some reflex as the limbs went straight. So I wound up with a deflex recurve with about 1 1/2" total reflex. It turned out sorta OK because when I tillered it by the time I got down to 40#@28" there was only about 3/32" of yew left. If I'd put reflex in the limbs it would have been heavier and I might have ended up with bits of Plum showing through the Yew belly. I did side tiller a bunch, took about 1/4" off the width. Next time I'll thin the back down a lot more.
Anyway I chronoed it  when I hit 40@26 and 3 shots got 172,171 and 173. Then I continued to 40@28. When I pulled it back on the shooting machine the arrow fell off just as I was releasing it. Nice clean dry fire from 28" . Didn't appear to be any damage so I squeezed the nock together a bit and tried again. I got 3 175's. Not much gain for 2" more draw. Maybe the dry fire screwed it. It does shoot nice and I think it's going to look nice also. I'l post some more pictures when I get it tarted up.

[DC]

And the FD. The second picture is Gimped to flip one layer to compare the limbs. There is a little reflex in the tip of one limb that makes it look a little stiffer but I think they are close.

[bownarra]

With these sort of bows you should deflex the handle. A deflexed splice is better than deflexing the fades. This reduction in necessary tip travel to brace allows you to have the reflexed outers for the energy storage. Parallel limb for a good distance which means you have plenty pf thickness taper again allowing more reflex to be kept by the outers (thinner wood can bend further).
I've just finished a similar elm bow. It is hitting 185fps with 10.5gpp arrows @ 27" It should be good for another inch of draw without breaking down any, it's 64 ntn.

[George Tsoukalas]

DC, when you say you pulled it to 16" on the long string, are you talking string movement or tip movement.
If you are talking tip movement, keep in mind that in a finished bow tips only move about 3".
Jawge

[Nasr]

DC, when you say you pulled it to 16" on the long string, are you talking string movement or tip movement.
If you are talking tip movement, keep in mind that in a finished bow tips only move about 3".
Jawge

 Do you mean 3" of movement after its braced? I never knew that.

[DC]

With these sort of bows you should deflex the handle. A deflexed splice is better than deflexing the fades. This reduction in necessary tip travel to brace allows you to have the reflexed outers for the energy storage. Parallel limb for a good distance which means you have plenty pf thickness taper again allowing more reflex to be kept by the outers (thinner wood can bend further).
I've just finished a similar elm bow. It is hitting 185fps with 10.5gpp arrows @ 27" It should be good for another inch of draw without breaking down any, it's 64 ntn.

It is deflexed in the splice. About 5-6°. I normally do 11° but thought I'd try a little less on this one.

DC, when you say you pulled it to 16" on the long string, are you talking string movement or tip movement.
If you are talking tip movement, keep in mind that in a finished bow tips only move about 3".
Jawge

It was on the short long string so it kind of meaningless out of context.
 I'm with Nasr here. I thought the tips(braced) moved about 1" for every 3" you pull the string. That would put the tip movement at 7-8" on an average bow.

[Badger]

   I think these Mark St Louis style bows will eventually dominate at the flight shoots when more people start showing up with them. My fastest bows have always had deflexed handles.

[DC]

They've sure worked for me. I've just got to wrap my head around tillering them. The first half dozen or so I made went really well. The last bunch have not gone well. Maybe I'm trying too hard. I should go with the Force

[Selfbowman]

? If you put say 12 degrees deflex in the handle and 4” of reflex in the last 6-8” of the limbs and make the bow 54-56” long with a 8” handle. What would a draw length be for this design with out pushing the limits to much? I have some great billets 31-33long. Been saving them for three piece take downs. Arvin

[sleek]

Arvin, you can easily get 28 from that. The trick is width for your draw length at that point. How wide are they?

[Selfbowman]

Probably all at least 1 1/4 to 1 7/8 already rough tapered. They came from the bottom cut offs of my 69-72 inch pyramids. Real clean. Arvin