Hi All,
I'm working away at my second attempt to build myself a bow and I'd like to get some community feedback and support to help move through some of these last phases.
I'm working with Oregon Ash and am doing a design inspired by Paul Comstocks section on white woods in TBB1. So its about 67" long, 1 3/4" starting width, and slightly tapering down towards 1/2" tips.
Slimbob has been helping me get this far, and his approach to tillering is to get off the long string fairly early. So that's what I've attempted to do, but in the process of my beginner level tillering a bit of set has come in towards the end of the limbs. I think mostly just from straining the limbs too fast and too soon.
These pictures shown are with my bow strung at 4"BH and pulling down about 1-2"
side1 by
Ryder Coen, on Flickr
side2 by
Ryder Coen, on Flickr
unbraced by
Ryder Coen, on Flickr
So I am considering heat treating the belly and inducing a bit of reflex where the set has taken. The only thing I don't want to build proper caul/form for inducing reflex at this stage in my bow making journey. So slimbob has offered the suggestion to place some shims under the handle and at about 10-12 inches from the tips to lift up the limbs so I can clamp the tips down with heat to add some reflex into them.
It seems like this would counteract the amount of string follow and hopefully limit more set from coming in while I finish the tillering.
So my current plan is to use shims and clamps to bend back the areas where set has taken in towards the end of the limbs, heat treat the belly, and then continue tillering. And my current trajectory with tillering is to move the BH up to 5" check and even out the limbs again with a couple inches of bend, then once good increase BH to 6 inches, and continue on.
Thoughts, feedback or guidance appreciated!
(if you are going to offer feedback on the tiller, please make sure to notice how each limb has some prop twist in opposite directions that messes with the eyes a bit.)