tillering a recurve

[danny f]

hi there,  i am thinking of building a bow with recurved tips. i was just wondering how you would go about tillering. do you tiller fully then flip the tips and it will be fine?. or do you get it looking something like then flip tips and see how it is? if this makes any sense. cheers for any advice.

[DarkSoul]

If you are laminating a bow, you obviously introduce the recurve with the initial glue up. If you want to 'flip the tips' by means of steam or heat bending a selfbow, then you can do that either before or after floor tillering. The less thickness of the tip, the easier it is to bend. But the end result is what matter; the final tiller matters, not at what point you recurved the tips.

[danny f]

ok thanks for that. i will be using steam to bend the tips. thanks.

[Pappy]

I always flip the tips after I get them out to 20 inches or so,makes them much easier to get first brace and keep from over estimating the weight,done it both ways,before and after ,I like after better.
   Pappy

[scp]

When I "flip the tips," I don't actually make a recurve but I just compensate for the string follow. I do it after seeing how much set the bow gets. That's why I routinely leave the last 12 inches of tips at least 1/2 inch thick. It might be better to make them 3/4 inches thick if you are going for the draw weight over 50 pounds. It would be safer to keep them as wide as reasonable. What kind of recurve are you trying to make?