Mollegabet/Holmgaard lever tips

[Neolithic]

I have just "finished" a maple mollegabet bow that came about more or less by accident.
I first intended the piece to become an ordinary flat bow and then, in the spur of the moment, I thought "and let's also make it a holmgaard! yeah!" 
and this happened:







The tips were naturally reflexed. This, some might say, would be a good reason not to try to squeeze out a lever bow out of this poor piece of maple, or at least make the handle very short. They would be right, but I only thought of this after I had already cut the levers out.

I know the purpose of the levers is to be light and stiff to make the bow faster and give it better string angle, but when I realised my tips looks like this:
(left and right side, respectively)


Knotty knots, leave my tips be! 



I thought "these look bad" because they don't look particularly light (though they are stiff, and string angle is good) so I want to make them lighter. Problem is, I have no idea how much I will be able to do to them without being forced to take the whole bow down several pounds due to making them too weak. I want to avoid that, it is already just 38# at 28''.

Do you guys think it will be possible to cut out sharper shoulders to reduce weight, or is the wood too thin already? Will the knot stop further advancements on its tip? It would be unpleasant to loose all the benefits of those light mollegabet tips and only strain the the mid limb a whole lot.

Opinions and critique appreciated.

[paulsemp]

you might want to edit the cursing there are a lot of kids on here

[Neolithic]

you might want to edit the cursing there are a lot of kids on here

Done!

I will also refrain from swearing in the future.

[blackhawk]

I don't see any pics?

[Weylin]

did the pics in photo bucket get moved or deleted?

[Neolithic]

I did move the pictures, but I could still see them here so I thought it was OK.
I think I fixed the links now, but I can't see if it is any different for you. Works for me.

[Del the cat]

You could work out how narrow you could go with some maths, but I wouldn't trust my maths never mind ayone elses .
What you could do is glue on a long stip up the belly of the levers and then narrow them.
Or narrow them until they start to bend, then glue on the strip. You will have a nice long glue line and plenty of area to give a good join. Make the strip too wide at the inner end, then yo can blend it into the tip of theworking limb to avoid a stress point.
Del

[blackhawk]

You can narrow those levers down...those knots shouldn't be an issue in a static portion of the limb...and you need more bend in both limbs in the outer half of each working limb portion

[Slackbunny]

I would guess that at the very least you could round those edges out so that they don't look so sharp. Sharp corners are never a good thing anyway because they cause stress concentrations. Plus most people find smooth round edges more visibly appealing.

[Neolithic]

Thanks for the replies, I set to work adjusting things this morning.
Those levers are sturdier than they look.

This is the result:





The levers seem to work fine, but maybe the tiller is still a bit off. Don't know how much weight I've lost yet.
I dared to do a draw too:



Now I'm going out shooting.

[Slackbunny]

I think the outer half of the working part of the right limb is still a tad stiff. But my eyes aren't trained for mollies so maybe someone else could confirm that.

[blackhawk]

Yup..I was right before  by judging your braced pic that you need more bend in the outer half of each working limb...your hinging just outside the fades...that bow shouldn't be pulling past brace height yet...never pull past a problem in the tiller regardless of how much weight it is...always seek a good tiller first and don't worry about weight....tons more can be said and already has on how to proper tiller and the do's and dont's ....

[Mo_coon-catcher]

Once you get the tiller corrected, it looks like you have plently of thickness in the levers that you can narrow them a lot. I like to  narrow them until the tips are about 1/4 - 3/8" thick with a straight taper that starts at about 3/4" at the start of the levers at the fades. Getting the levers this narrow you will need to do an overlay for the string. Then to me if you want to make the levers as light as possible and gain the most efficiency I would start reducing the thickness of them until they barely flex at full draw.