Which side can I remove wood from?

[ajbruggink]

Hey guys,

I read before that you can remove wood from the sides of a bow's limbs to increase a bow's cast to some extent, as long as the bow's design can handle it. I have also read that if your bowstring favors one side of the bow rather than going down the middle, you only need to remove wood from the 'outbound' side. I looked up the word 'outbound' in the dictionary and it means 'to move towards the outside' but I'm still confused about which side would be outbound. In the picture I provided I would think the bowstring is heading towards the left, so its heading to the outside to the left, not the outside to the right, so I should remove wood from the left side to true it up, not the right side. Would this be correct? Your replies and critiques are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Aaron
https://imgur.com/EUwYFnl

[Ricardovanleeuwen]

You have to remove the Wood on the side you want the string moving towards, so if the string is on the right side and you want It to go left, remove Wood from the left side

[NewBowyer]

Dumb question, but do you mean literally the side of the limb as in the edge, so the scraper is actually perpendicular to the belly? Or “sort of” parallel to the belly but just angled toward that side of the limb?

[Pat B]

To move a limb sideways remove wood from the side of the limb(narrowing it). If you want to remove a twist remove wood from the edge of the limb belly(making it thinner). This is just a simple explanation.

[Del the cat]

Dumb question, but do you mean literally the side of the limb as in the edge, so the scraper is actually perpendicular to the belly? Or “sort of” parallel to the belly but just angled toward that side of the limb?

Like most problems the solution may be "A" "B" or "C"... but often it is a little of all 3
It's called experience
Del

[Eric Krewson]

If your limb thickness is even side to side get out your heat gun to align the limbs, this works much better than limb scraping.

I make my bows with side taper guide lines, my limbs are always even side to side and may dogleg in spite of my cautious layout. I have never been able to correct this lean on an osage bow with scraping the strong side although it is highly touted as a solution. I have found a little belly scraping on a bamboo backed osage bow will align the limbs.

With these limb layout lines you will seldom have any alignment problems.