bamboo advice needed on first bow

[Buckeye Guy]

I buy string matterial from 3rivers because they help pay for this forum site .
As for shipping I don't know because I stop there and get it !
Have fun !!
Guy

[irbthbow]

Thanks Guy, ordered it yesterday. Wow, by the time I buy everything for this bow I could have bought a nice finished one. Loving the experience though and with all the stuff I'll have, I should be able to build about 8 more.

No work last night, my 2 boys had a VBS program.
I have bows for both of them, but not hand made.....that will probably be coming shortly.

While I'm thinking, I know it's a ways away, but I have some Thornbys satin finish tung oil. I read on wikipedia I think that for a deep finish you can mix tung oil 1:1 with acetone for the first coat, then normal for the next coat, then steel wool and final coat. This is my plan now anyway unless someone thinks I shouldn't.

I keep thinking I should change the subject of this thread since it has ventured from the original question.

[toomanyknots]

make a tillering gizmo, top of the how to page, it will help a ton to get a good tiller, Bub

I believe when you first start making bows, it would be better to learn to tiller without having to rely on anything except your eyes. This will force you to learn to tiller well or die trying. But this is just my opinion, now I'm getting out of here before the pitchforks and torches come out...  .

[irbthbow]

Can't make pic small enough to download from my phone.  l have about 3" of set in the limbs. I guess that is from so much time on the tiller tree. Should i reflex it to remove it before I apply a finish? Would a heat gun work ok? How much would that affect the tiller?

[DarkSoul]

Upload some pics on http://www.tinypic.com and post the links here.

Set happens. Three inches is quite a lot, but not uncommon on your first few bows. You should be happy the bow survived! You could try the heat gun and temper the belly, but probably not a lot of the set will be removed. As soon as set is induced, it can hardly be removed.

[Eric Krewson]

My first 50 bows were eyeball tillered, most came out pretty well. The difference in myself and a lot of other folk is I have done some art work in the past, I see small differences in lines and shapes, most folk don't.

My bows became more consistent when I started using a gizmo. Lots of beginning bow makers get really lost in the tillering process because they just can't see where work needs to be done. Some will pick it up over time, some never do, ruin a lot of good bow and get very frustrated in the process.

[irbthbow]

ok, here are a couple of pics. I was aiming for a higher weight, but it looks like around 40lbs. at 28in. To get the tiller any better I'd keep dropping the weight. I don't want to end up with a toothpic. The strung pic. is not far off the shape of the bow relaxed. Wish I could have avoided that set a little more. Guess I'll do some more research on that.
Anyway, should get my string material tom. and after a few touch ups and final finishing I'll try to get a pic at full draw.
I did shoot a carbon arrow through it...sorry, that's all I had. I got about a 120yds of flight at full draw. I did not shoot a target or try to test speed, but it was really neat to sling an arrow for the first time from a bow I actually made.
My boys are now asking for their own.